As their fourth day in Artath commences, Sar’n apparates into the council chamber along with the sorceror, Nyax, and his uncle Nyall, the elder portal master. He greets Riley with a surprisingly solid punch to the arm considering how frail the old cat appears. Nyall notes that Riley grew up strong and Riley speculates that Nyall may have been involved in his upbringing in the North. The old man looks around, saying that he’s got no idea what Riley means and they can discuss it later. Nyall leads his nephew over to the seating for the Puma caste, several of the caste attempt to veer off and leave, but he orders them to stay with a simple gesture.

Anubep and his crew arrive looking somewhat subdued and worn after their early morning training with the Scro, unlike their usual rowdy entrance. Lastly, the Emperor and Empress arrive, beckoning Riley to his side, he’s less than pleased to see Nyall in the chamber once more. The brief begins, informing the council that a legion of Scro instructors have arrived overnight to provide new training to the Artathi forces. Thronin respectfully requests some Scro to train his caste’s troops as well, which is readily granted. Gonju, hesitantly addresses the council, asking where to send Letathen for training. Anubep had already offered to help them, which Riley relays, and Gonju thanks the caste leader. Gonju admits they have four legions ready to train (secretly this was the Letathen underground movement), surprising everyone. Sar’n wants to help train some of the Letathen who have demonstrated mysterious abilities (psionics).

They review plans and troop movements for the upcoming battle east of Neheri as well. During a lull, Nyall stands up to address the council, declaring that Sar’n has convinced him to come out of retirement to aid in recruiting other powerful Artathi Sorcerors. Older and more powerful sorcerors generally retire to avoid decimating the younger sorcerors in power struggles. While he will not be retaking the lead of the caste, he will act as his nephews adviser. Nyall also talks about tweaking the barrier around the southern continent instead of making it easier for people to get in via magic. During another lull, Leeroy calls out Jendra who has repeatedly been acting as though she wanted to say something. She requests a contingent of Scro trainers for the Claws of Amun, her holy order of paladins, which Riley of course grants. The council seems a bit surprised, Thronin admits to Davros that the Claws are regarded so highly and the divine origin of their powers, that a request for additional training is unsettling.

Once the Emperor resumes leading the meeting, he inquires as to the integration of the Letathen into the castes. So far none have been accepted or even requested to rejoin one of their parent castes. While the capital has not seen any incidents in response to the unification of Artathi society, in some more remote areas, there have been some disturbances. Emperor Thrux reinforces his previous decrees and declares that he will hold the clan leaders responsible for the actions of their underlings. Afterward, he leaves, dismissing the meeting; Sar’n confers with Davros and Riley, joined by Anubep, Thronin, Jendra, Gonju, Nyall and Nyax also join the discussion.

The group formulates plans to launch strikes against the Kofrath encampments, Sar’n trying to learn more of the Letathen psionic abilities and their potential uses. Anubep would like to blend two of his legions with the new Free Artathi Legion to help supply structure and leadership to the fledgling force. Nyall would like a Scro escort to go with him and Nyax to round up more of the elder mages from their retirement. Riley suggests the Kobowlders launch a stealth scouting mission into the core of a Kofrath encampment to learn more about the enemy. Anubep volunteers some muscle to aid the mages as well. Sar’n wishes to visit Neheri to meet with locals, Riley also wishes to join him. Prior to departing in the afternoon, Riley and Davros tag along with Anubep to view the Scro training.

At the Jaguar training grounds, they see remarkably intense PT going on. Troops in full kit are being put through intense exercises with extreme loads and there are more than enough instructors to provide one on one training. The Scro are offering a potion to the Artathi that have fallen out, which soon has them back on their feet. Not all of them return to training, some are dismissed, unable to keep up. Nyall has already wandered off to do some things he wants done, Nyax wants to acquire some of the healing beverage to mix with the Artathi Kava for research. Davros wants to try some first hand, so the Scro put him into training. Riley speaks with some of the senior instructors, requesting trainers for the factions that made requests at the morning council meeting. Gunny (unofficial nickname of the senior instructor) sends some of his men with Thronin and Gonju, while assigning one specifically to Riley. While he and Gonju talk with Gunny, Riley’s instructor assesses him, occasionally throwing projectiles or requesting stretches. Sar’n makes another trip to the City of Sigils.

Shiele eventually ends up in an observation room overlooking the Jaguar training grounds where women and children are watching. Apparently the women aren’t generally in the offensive legions. Shiele decides to take up the issue with Anubep in person, while he’s training. He scoops her up, along with the sacks of rocks he’s carrying and she wants to get the women and girls into the special training. When he says they can train, Shiele teleports again, back to the room. In minutes, Shiele has a group of teenage girls and older women coming down to the training grounds. Eventually Davros falls out and is dragged off to the side with the others, resting briefly before they feed him the rejuvenating beverage. He sees them adding herbs and such to vats off to the side where the brew is being made. Back on his feet, he rejoins Riley and Gonju chatting with Gunny.

Shiele has now joined them and wants to chat with Gonju about the practice of Ridding the Emperor had mentioned earlier. Letathen kits are often sent away to live with Letathen families, of similar breeding if possible. Shiele subtly hints at reuniting families under the new order of society or possibly relocating families. A portal opens in the middle of the training grounds and Scro troops begin appearing, filling the grounds, followed by Sar’n. Anubep, who still hasn’t fallen out or even apparently tired, peels off to come talk with Sar’n and the others. Sar’n has decided to alter their plans, instead of the Kobowlders launching a stealth mission, he has recruited a legion of Scro front line troops to lead through a portal into the center of the Kofrath camp. Anubep eagerly offers a legion as well and Riley convinces Shiele to join the strike. As troops begin excitedly gather for the raid, Riley and Sar’n teleport to Neheri to scout out a strike position.

Guards are somewhat surprised by their sudden appearance, but are convinced to fetch their commander. Sar’n plans to bring the local leadership up to speed on the coming battle plans before proceeding to the attack. News of the societal changes have reached Neheri, but don’t seem to be enforced at all. An Il’Artathi leader appears and is less than cordial with Riley, although he manages to keep his cool in spite of being addressed by a Letathen. Sar’n plans to bring in craftsman to support future war efforts as well. The leader, Thall, even goes so far as to say that Letathen here still know their place. Some of the local dwarves are summoned to meet with the Kobowlders as well, Sar’n wants to know what happened to the Dwarves in Fasul when it was overrun. Roughly a hundred escaped the conquest, with no certain knowledge of their countrymen’s fate. Once dismissed, Thall departs with his tail thrashing in agitation. Sar’n and Riley teleport to their destination to scout out a good arrival point invisibly.

A small yard is open towards the center among the Kofrath bunkers, surrounded by tents and slave troops, most of the Kofrath are underground during the daytime. Teleporting back, they seek out the rally point to rendezvous with the troops for the attack. While Davros gives a rallying speech and Sar’n parses out a warning to potentially rescue slaves from the Kofrath camp. Riley informs Thronin of Thall’s intransigence toward the Emperor’s recent edicts and he requests Sar’ns aid in paying Neheri a visit after the battle. Excitement is high as everyone prepares for the mission to begin, casting spells and buffs.

Sar’n opens a portal and steps through, unleashing a blast of lightning, destroying a company of troops nearby. Riley charges through after a few seconds, along with Thronin and his comrades, Shiele, Davros, Gonju and other leaders following. Artathi dive into bunkers as Scro form a beachhead around the portal and pure anarchy reigns for several moments as the surprise attack decimates nearby forces. Scro also join the attacks into the tunnels under the camp, facing some losses once the Kofrath recover from their surprise and use magic. The ground rumbles a bit due to the tunnel warfare and Sar’n summons Earth elementals and sends them into the tunnels in case the enemy has their own elementals. Davros encounters a large eye under the tunnel, surrounding by black scales. Through the telepathic link, he informs the others that there is a black dragon underground. It shakes its head free, blasting acid toward Davros. He teleports behind his Scro, healing them and retreating to the surface. With the ground shaking everyone else starts heading for the surface. Soon the dragon bursts through the ground, circling the camp and surveying the damage.

The ancient black dragon determines the camp is lost and flies off to the west with the attack force mopping up the enemy on the ground. While Sar’n tries to rally the troops for another strike on the next nearest camp, Shiele seeks out the dragon’s horde at the bottom of the hole it fled from. She teleports back to the palace to empty her portable hole and comes back for more. Discarding their magic dispelling shields, the Scro grab replacements from the fallen and Sar’n leads the Army through another portal. Immediately on the other side, Sar’n is hit with fire as he sees troops charging towards him. Riley is right behind him alongside Scro forces, this encampment seems to have been prepared for the attack as the portal is circled by enemy forces.

The second attack is nowhere near as one-sided, they actually take casualties this time. Gonju spears enemy forces with his psionic abilities, Sar’n takes to the air, and Davros begins raining holy wrath upon the enemy. This camp, having been attacked several times at night by Sar’n, was more prepared, especially after the previous encampment may have warned them. Gonju’s Letathen companion appears to dematerializing and rematerializing with her weapons inside enemies, killing them instantly. Davros magically enlarges himself to wade into the enemy. Sar’n takes a brief leave to refill his lava reservoir after dumping it on the enemy. Riley leaps behind enemy lines and chews threw them with his blade barrier, Thronin and his companions behind him. It takes time to establish a beachhead and push troops back from the portal to bring everyone through. A small portion of Scro and a few hundred Artathi do not make it through the portal before it closes.

Eventually Shiele teleports in beside Gonju, after clearing up the Dragon’s hoarde, quickly being filled in on the battle. She lends her skillset to helping breach some of the bunkers which are being aggressively defended. Teleporting in behind the mages and soldiers at the entrance, she stabs the nearest Kofrath at the door, rapidly appearing around the room. Her daggers hit each of those guarding the door in a matter of seconds. Outside the beachhead, Riley mows through enemy forces with his blade barrier, seeking high value targets, pursued by Thronin and crew plus other Artathi forces, clearing up survivors behind him as he circles their own forces defensively. Sar’n is flying overhead, attacking again, and notices that Riley is glowing again. The slave races are firing indiscriminately, hitting Kofrath and their enemies alike. Sar’n dumps more lava on the enemy before switching to his Death Wand crossbow and peppering the outer ranks of the camp with magic.

While the attrition rate is high, the Kofrath forces are definitely seeing the worse end of it. Soon, Shiele’s efforts help the Scro push into the bunkers as they finally overcome the defenses. Sar’n lands behind friendly lines, switching his pocket dimension over to a triage center for wounded troops. The battle is now becoming another tunnel fight as most of the troops on the surface have been routed. After about forty-five minutes, the Kofrath have managed to secure some subterranean positions and friendly troops draw back to prepare for the potential arrival of the dragon. With the battle at a stalemate and no sign of the dragon over an hour and a half after their first strike, Sar’n teleports to the Artathi encampment northeast to check for signs of the dragon, then decides to acquire some reinforcements. He issues the commander battle plans, sending troops to secure the recently conquered outpost the dragon had fled and the rest toward Neheri. Sar’n opens a portal, bringing two thousand fresh troops to the battlefield to secure the second outpost. With a lull in the battle and no sign of the dragon two hours after the fact; Riley, Thronin, Sar’n and Shiele head to Neheri to warn of the black dragon as well as confront Thall.

The guards once again react to the sudden arrival, but this time Thronin is with them and chews them out. He demands Thall’s immediate presence and inquires about the housing assigned for the forces coming to direct future battles. The assigned quarters are a merchants home, which displeases Thronin. He heads off to the Keep with the Kobowlders in tow, having their usual petty banter. When they reach the Keep, Thall is buckling on his armor. Shiele has managed to easily steal an entire town guard uniform along the way, piece by piece. Thronin commences chewing out Thall publicly and deeply among all the guards nearby. He gives Thall several options of recompense for the insults he has offered to Riley, including the final option, training under the Scro. After removing Thall from command of Neheri, he places one of his comrades (Thix) in charge of the city.

Riley inquires about the local Letathen and Thronin charges Thix with bringing Neheri up to Imperial standard as far as treatment of the Letathen and recruiting for the Free Artathi Legion. All Thronin’s instruction are taken down on paper by a nearby Aratathi, he orders Thall not to read, only to sign in the traditional manner. Thall gnashes open his palm, making a bloody paw print on the paper. Shiele teleports him back to the capital for extra special training, with a final bonk on the head from Thronin. With a quick word to Gunny, she leaves Thall under a swarm of screaming instructors to return to Neheri. Thronin is in the process of ordering Thix to bring the city up to snuff when she returns. They take some time to discuss alterations to the battle plans and troop movements now that a third of Kofrath forces in the region have been annihilated. Although the missing ancient black dragon is a point of concern for everyone.

With Neheri in hand, they return to the second encampment to retrieve Davros and Leeroy. When they arrive, smoke is pouring out of several of the bunker entrances. Leeroy and the Letathen Psionicist phased through blocked tunnels to clear out remaining enemies. The camp has been thoroughly secured, so that the upper ranks can return to the capital. The Scro and Artathi set up in the remains of the camps that were hit to control the territory. Thronin and his remaining companion Throsa, along with Anubep, Gonju and Krisan (Puma/Cheetah) and the Kobowlders, plus Sar’ns remaining Scro (Tum) return to the capital with some of the worse wounded. Once back at the capital, Sar’n departs on his own.

The group scatters, the Kobowlders heading back to their suite to clean up before meeting with the Emperor. Shiele, Davros, and Riley all head to their private rooms to clean up, while Thronin and the other Artathi along with Leeory head to the imperial bath chamber, each grabbing some alcohol on the way to relax. Davros opens his door and is buried up to the knees in looted wealth that Shiele dropped off. He briefly grumps and asks Riley if he has a spare portable hole, who responds that Davros should now be able to afford one and closes his door. He summons a servant to find a portable hole, then load up all the wealth and open an account for Davros, offering them a commission for the work. It takes over an hour before Davros can get into his room, while the others relax and clean up. Roughly 50 million gold worth of stuff was in Davros’ room, a drop in the bucket to Shiele’s existing wealth, not to mention that she completely filled Lillith’s room. Back at the Kobowlders Keep, Sar’n is planning for a plot of land to set up the Scro on with Skree’s lieutenant, Willis. Shiele and Riley finish up their baths, watching the Artathi counting up Davros windfall and sipping drinks.

Shiele has them summon Nyall, hoping he can help her get back and forth from the northern continent. He asks for a few items of treasure from the hoard in Lillith’s room and in exchange, shrinks down the rest and places it in a pouch for Shiele. There are some maps in the pile that she decides to save for Riley. Nyall leaves the maps that were in the horde, as Shiele feels they might be important to Riley. They depart from Lillith’s room and she tells Riley about the maps, which include troop movements and numbers in the south as well as maps of the Underdark for the entire planet. Nyall also takes Shiele’s helm of teleport to work on giving her what she requested. Emperor Thrux is not available until the next day, so the party actually manages to get a normal amount of rest.

The chamber of the temple is pitch black, the beam of light seems to be the only thing in the room. A hum of energy fills the air, growing more intense as he approaches the beam which alights upon the mark of Amun on the floor. He realizes that the light is actually emanating from the mark on the floor. When Riley reaches out to touch the light, there is a flash of golden light and he is standing on verdant savanna, animals visible all around, mountains in the distance. After turning to survey the surrounding, a Letathen appears before him, he appears to be a mix of all Artathi breeds. On his chest is the mark of Amun in his fur. St. Cuthbert also appears and waves off Riley’s attempt to bow, informing him that he will now be called upon to a higher purpose, serving Amun. He releases Riley into the service of Amun and departs, fading into the savanna grass after a few steps. Turning back to Amun, he is now seated on a throne of prey, bones and carcasses, and tells Riley that his entire life has been the trial the others might have faced. He touches Riley’s forehead, sending divine warmth coursing through him. He comes to on the temple floor in the center of the mark on the floor.

Outside, the Emperor summons unseen servants for a breakfast feast as they wait, as well as a portable throne for Thrux. As an hour passes, people begin to grow impatient as the trial seems to be taking longer than any other petitioner. After the second hour, the Emperor sends a priest to check on the status of the trial. He returns quickly, telling Thrux that he cannot gain entry, displeasing the Emperor who demands that someone find out what is going on. Thronin is no longer disgruntled, now appearing quite confused, ceasing his pacing to stand and stare at the door. The Emperor stands near him, waiting as well. When the priests return, they prostrate themselves before the impatient Emperor to inform him that no access can be gained to the temple at all and the windows are blocked by golden light. Thrux’s tail begins twitching in agitation, the first time anyone has seen his composure slip.

The Empress soon approaches with Jendra in tow, she manages to calm Thrux down easily and he regains his composure. A seat is brought for the Empress as well and the rulers wait. Several more hours pass as everyone waits for Riley’s trial to conclude. Around noon, Shiele finally rouses from bed in search of food. At high noon, the entire temple begins to blaze with light and a knell rings out from the temple, the ground around it trembling. The temple doors begin to swing open, Thronin standing before them in shock, the Emperor and Empress both look surprised while maintaining some composure. Jendra however has a rather satisfied look on her face as Davros and Sar’n get closer to see inside. The inside of the temple has been transformed into a room more luxurious than the Shari room the party looted. Giant glowing symbols cast a glow on the walls, emitting beams of light that hold Riley’s form in midair.

Soon the beams of light fade and Riley drops to the floor unconscious. People enter hesitantly, the Emperor and others approaching him on the ground as the priests examine the temple, never having been unable to enter before. Jendra rushes in to help Riley, lifting his head into her lap. The divine experience has left Riley feeling simultaneously exhilarated and drained, every fiber of his body aching. She helps him to his feet, with Thronin still standing dumbstruck in the doorway. The Emporer claps Riley on the shoulder with a slight smirk of satisfaction, drawing gasps from the other Artathi, seeing the Emperor touch a Letathen. They take a break for some food, despite the pain and fatigure, Riley is ready to proceed with planning for the Kofrath war.

Back in the Throne room, a new chair has been added to the dais, apparently for Riley. While it is not as ornate, it is on the dais near the Emperor and Empress’s thrones. Shiele’s chamber maids finally return after being startled by the ground shaking and the knell from the temple. She tries to explain the concept of Letathen to Shiele, who becomes quite incensed, promptly ordering her out and finishing her bath by herself. In a bit of a mood, she makes a mess and steals a music box. An older servant soon arrives to inform Shiele that the Emperor has summoned everyone to the Throne Room.

When she arrives, Riley is seated to the right of the Emperor with Jendra standing behind them. As people file in there is quite a bit of shock to see Riley seated on the dais. Anubep, head of the Jaguar clan, arrives to once again throw around his clanmates and keep everyone in line. The pain slowly subsides, but the high energy feeling remains, keeping Riley very energetic. Sar’n, Davros, and Amban are at the foot of the dais while Thronin stands in the crowd looking extremely disgruntled. The Emperor soon orders the doors sealed until this meeting is over. He orders Thronin, as Riley’s sponsor (something he hadn’t thought about previously, expecting Riley to die), to recount the morning’s events. Riley’s recounting of his trial does nothing to calm the room, drawing many cries of outrage over blasphemy and heresy. The high priest confirms for the the Emperor that Amun always appears to petitioners as their own breed.

Thrux declares Riley to be the new General of the Artathi military and Riley then takes this moment to make a power play. Noting that Amun said that nothing will be the same from now on, Riley makes a power play, asking that Artathi society come together and welcome the Letathen. The Emperor agrees and decrees that Letathen will now be full members of society, upon prodding from Riley he adds that they will have their own caste and seat on the council unless one of their parents clans will accept them. He then asks Riley to lead the clan leaders into the council chambers, relinquishing some power and surprising/upsetting some people. Finally, Shiele points out that Lillith is missing, leading to a brief discussion of tracking down their errant ally. Some servants provide details that she departed suddenly in the night.

Sar’n, having the least difficulty in travelling to and from the plane, let alone the continent of Artath, heads out on a brief search for Lillith. First visiting the keep and learning that Lillith had assembled a strike force to lead into the City of Sigils. Travelling there, he finds Scro and Kobowlder forces have established a perimeter, keeping out some local guards. The Scro, Bograck, informs Sar’n about the events that transpired last night. Lillith along with Skree, Rogar, Eldrin and some Scro made it through the Infernal portal in pursuit of Lilith’s devilish father. He briefly talks with the guard before allowing them in to assess the property. The mages scream in terror shortly after beginning their assessment of the property, believing it was an Arch-Devil that caused the destruction. One postulates that it was Asmodius, the Duke of Hell. The guards and mages go to inform the Lady of Pain, ruler of the City of Sigils.

Sar’n prepares a spell and carefully summons the demons he dealt with to aid in the Kobowlder reaching the Gray Wastes. He briefly chats with him about a strike into the ninth level of hell, although he’s so vague about it, no one listening could level specific accusations. Arrangements would need to be made, so the discussion is tabled for the time being. Before returning to the business at hand, he instructs the Scro to assemble some of their best instructors to help train Letathen and checks on their other business interests in the City of Sigils.

Meanwhile, back at the Artathi Council Chamber, Leroy speaks aloud for the first time (noting that Sar’n took off suddenly once again), surprising the locals with it’s sentience. The council goes over what they know of the current state of the war in Artath, Davros and Riley do their best to share intel on the war in the north. Finally Sar’n returns and aids them with his maps in filling the council in on the North. The Emperor invites them to dinner as the council meeting ends, Riley and Sar’n planning to leave afterward to scout the Kofrath positions. Jendra offers to take Shiele to the market to shop for clothes and of course Shiele does her okay-est to make things awkward, which is better than most people’s best. The party cleans up at their suite, preparing for dinner.

A Letathen servant appears to take them to dinner, very excited to meet Riley. On the way to dinner, he inquires if Letathen will be permitted to join the war effort, which they admit they are actually planning on. He leads the remaining party (Davros, Shiele, Riley and Sar’n plus entourage) to a rather plain doorway. They are led into an almost suite sized room where the current and former Imperial leaders lounge around the room (roman style) for dinner. Thrux, seated by his Empress, Kressen, introduces the former royalty; former Emperor Thum and former Empress Kile. Dinner is served with Riley seated between the current and former Emperor. Thum seems to possess a substantial amount of detailed knowledge about Riley’s life and has a great deal of interest as well. A careless remark from Shiele has the dowager empress leaving later on in the dinner, followed by Empress Kressen.

At the end of dinner, the dowager Emperor and Empress bid the party goodnight. Standing side by side, some of the party suspect or note there is a resemblance between Riley and the Emperors. They each embrace him, the former Empress has difficulty processing this, declaring rather emotionally that she cannot deal with this. There is some emotional tension from the royals that Riley remains somewhat aloof towards as everyone disperses. Davros spends the rest of the evening studying up to help planning tomorrow while Riley and Sar’n plot out scouting locations with one of the sorcerors from the council. They pinpoint a city with excellent mineral resources that could be key to the war effort, several Kofrath positions potentially threatening supportive farm lands and an additional position to target. Sar’n inquires about Cinnabar mines, which are located deep in Kofrath territory. Potential future plans to liberate those strategic resources. The sorceror confirms that the volcano near the industrial city of Neheri is in fact active with a bubbling caldera.

Davros and Sar’n prep Riley, handing him some rods, scrolls, and items for potential problems. Then he and Sar’n teleport, appearing on the rim of the caldera to begin their scouting mission. Sar’n takes a moment to fill his pocket dimension with molten lava. They proceed to the two locations east of the volcano first, before heading west again toward the capital. At their first stop, they see a camp of about 40-60k troops, the center encampment being Kofrath and perhaps an eighth of the total troops present. On the southwest side of the camp, as far from the Artathi forces as possible, they’ve begun farming, some initial agriculture and livestock in pastures.

Next they arrive at their tertiary target, the eastern most location that they ear marked for scouting. This location has a similar number of troops and a very large herds of cattle kept nearby. A palisade surrounds this location, unlike the previous one. They’ve been suffering from the guerrilla warfare of the plains tribes, a scorched perimeter of 300ft surrounds the Kofrath defenses. Well worn trails lead south and west from the cattle yards of this encampment. They scout southward along the trail to see what the Kofrath are up to nearby but discover nothing of interest quickly and decide to move on.

They teleport once more, visiting their second primary target west of Neheri, a town of Fasul at the head of a river at the edge of the mountains. This encampment has been set up on an evacuated Artathi town with a wall surrounding the town, bearing some breaches from the Kofrath attacks. They estimate that perhaps 60-80k troops inhabit the town now and are more mixed together due to the tight quarters. A small keep occupies the center of town on a hill where most of the Kofrath and leadership have holed up. It doesn’t seem to jive with what they’ve seen of Artathi architecture prior to now.

First of their three secondary targets, is 3/4 of a circle with their backs to the river and a small cattle yard alongside their crops. It seems to have 40-60k troops as well, once again mostly slave races. Cattle trails to the west indicate one of them is supplying the other as they head to the fifth location, second of the secondary targets. This one has a cattle trail leading towards the western most of their targets. The cattle here look like cattle, but smaller and stunted, possibly cattle from the Underdark. This camp has a palisade as well, but no scorched perimeter, and a similar number of troops. The final secondary target is centered around a massive sink hole about 80ft across. Stairs have been carved into the sides of the hole, perhaps a primary emergence point from the Underdark. This camp is very well fortified, with earthworks and a palisade, perhaps 50-70k troops. An arrow flies into the sky, narrowly missing them and Riley instinctively launches a grenade back at them. Triggering their first incident of the night, arrows fly at them, quickly followed by spells. Sar’n drops the lava from his pocket dimension, incinerating troops in wide swaths then beat a hasty retreat.

Late at night, they reappear in their suite, quickly discussing their reconnaissance and tactical options for the coming campaign. With some good ideas in place, they turn in to sleep, Riley actually going to bed while Sar’n spends his rest period in the pocket dimension before launching additional night strikes. Summoning shadow elementals to reek havoc in two different encampments as well as dropping deluges of molten lava. Before he finally turns in for the night, after a second pocket dimensions sleep session, Sar’n provides Riley with a second written casualty report for their scouting expedition.

Early in the morning, Riley finds a group of monks to train with, practicing their early morning exercises with them better than some of their middle level members. Davros attends a local religious ceremony, noting that some unusual Artathi are present even though they have donned clothing to conceal their Letathen nature. The congregation has noticed but does not react negatively to their presence thanks to the events of the previous day. Davros eagerly studies the service and worship of Amun and other Artathi gods. As Davros goes to leave the service for the council meeting, an acolyte intercepts him and requests he join the head priest on his way to the meeting as well. The head priest is pleased that Davros has not only behaved, but listened intently to the sermon. He also offers directions to a local temple of Pelor for some of the non-resident tradesman and mentions Riley’s presence would be appreciated at a sermon.

Around 9am, a servant comes to their suite to retrieve any remaining members for the council meeting. Being the same person that upset Shiele the day before, she makes an effort to prostrate herself, hoping to gain Shiele’s forgiveness for the offense she caused the day before. The young maid is in tears, having a crisis as she realizes what her behavior truly meant. Shiele helps her to the couch to talk, understanding the girl is truly aware of her errors. This whole ordeal manages to rouse Sar’n from his sleep to observe from a nearby doorway. Ultimately, Shiele ends up giving her relationship advice, as she (a jaguar) has a huge crush on a boy (a cheetah). Eventually she realizes the meeting is soon and begins braiding Shiele’s hair.

When the morning meeting is set to start, Riley enters alongside some of the senior monks, Davros with the high priest, and Sar’n with Shiele teleport in from their chamber. They all arrive in the antechamber to the throne room and only three days into their visit, people have quickly adapted to their presence. Letathen are now more often seen among the Imperial staff with few negative reactions from others. As everyone enters the throne room, Shiele spots the handmaid speaking with Anubep, head of the Jaguar clan. Riley introduces himself to the Letathen who now find themselves in the throne room. Gonju, a tiger/puma crossbreed, greets Riley, privately admitting he was a member of a Letathen underground, which Riley admits he would support should the current societal changes falter.

The Emperor and Empress arrive last, the crowd falling silent as he beckons Riley up to the third chair on the dais. Riley briefs the entire throne room on the events of last night, regretfully admitting their scouting expedition only resulted in a little over five thousand Kofrath troop casualties. Thrux reviews the papers they provide and is eager to disseminate this intel to the clan heads for new strategies against the Kofrath. Once Riley’s briefing is over, the Emperor calls the clan heads to the council chambers. Shiele takes a moment to butter up Anubep as everyone heads for the council rooms, now on the handmaids side since she knows the girl fancies a man of a different breed. The clan leader is quite nice and diplomatic, even inviting the Kobowlders to dinner at the Jaguar clan headquarters. Davros confirms to the clergy, including the tiger who first doubted Riley, that their numbers are accurate.

The Emperor calls forth Riley and Sar’n, who is still obviously very fatigued, supported by Leeroy. He asks what they need to continue this insanely successful campaign. They are informed that the most powerful local sorcerers are reclusive and less than helpful. The Letathen contingent leader, Gonju, receives a book from the Kobowlders detailing alchemical information that will aid the war effort. Thrux announces the formation of the Free Artathi Legion, a military branch that will determine it’s members by merit alone. Anubep admits his clan has been preparing for this day, with 9 legions to add to the theater. Plans form to eliminate two Kofrath contingents from the map east of Neheri between the official Artathi forces (15 legions) and the Vyk’artathi (jaguar) forces. Davros has now established a great working relationship with the Tiger high priest.

As the meeting dismisses, Shiele finds the handmaiden, Briel and immediately resumes talking with her about her romantic interests. She notes that her cousin has some crossbred kits and is interested in getting them somewhere safe, AKA the north. Shiele is ready to help immediately as this hits her emotionally close to home. Jendra approaches Riley as he talks with Thrux at the end of the meeting. They head off to a meeting room to discuss strategies for the coming days of the war, namely plans to seize Neheri and move on to Fasul. Jendra wants to run a recruitment campaign in the capital and Riley offers to help.

The Vyk’Artathi (jaguar) dinner party is a more relaxed affair for the Kobowlders, where Shiele orchestrates transportation of Briel and her kits to the north. Sar’n even makes Anubep a member of the Kobowlders. Jendra gets a little drunk and talks about how the former Emperor and Empress abdicated, giving additional clues about the power changes in the Artathi empire. Riley tries to get her out of there before the drunken Il’Artathi can talk too much and puts her to sleep on a divan back at the suite. Sar’n heads to the Kobowlders Keep once more along with Briel and her family, preceded by a drunk Anubep. The Artathi refugees are greeted with pocket gnomes and shown to quarters as Sar’n heads into the City of Sigils to meet the instructors selected by the Scro. He organizes them and brings them through a portal to the Artathi lands to aid in training troops for the coming war. Sar’n heads back to the keep to give Anubep a tour before returning to the southern continent. They arrive on the caldera by Neheri and Sar’n takes Anubep on a drunken, late night assault on the Kofrath. When they finally return to the city, they find the legion of instructors ordering around a bunch of Jaguar lowbies that were nearby when they arrived.

In the wee hours of the morning, just before the first Ray’s of sun crest the mountains, Sar’n takes the mage from the other day to see his uncle, the portal master. After a few moments of simple statements, and matter of fact almost threats, an ancient puma caste sorcerer opens a window in his gnarled old tree tower, and asks what Sar’n wants.

Sar’n quickly explains the state of things concisely. He learns a great deal about ancient Artathi history, and gets confirmation of Rileys parantage. Eventually, and somewhat reluctantly the mage agrees to help Sar’n gather any of the other “older” mages stating that it could be “fun.” Sar’n first teleports them to the council meeting that is about to begin.

After the funeral, the party has 17 days to wait for the boat to Artath at the port of Korsoth. Riley informs the others of what to expect from the feline populace; a general dislike of outsiders, a stronger dislike of mixed races, and an outright disdain of Letathen. The Artathi also worship different gods, so proselytizing would be most unwelcome. The three member delegation, which included an Il’Artathi (Jendra, a paladin and lion), a Tal’Artathi (Kasa, a priest and tiger) and a Sal’Artathi (Amban, a monk and cheetah), already returned to the port to conclude their business before their return home. Lillith and Riska discuss using their teleportation capabilities to help transport him and the Mauri delegation home to inform the Baron of Mauri of recent events.

Although Shiele had already wandered off, so Lillith and Riska try to track her down. As they are searching, they notice that there are a number of different races walking around in the open in Tritta following the regime change. As they are walking someone whispers something to Riska, which Lillith overhears. Eventually, they find Shiele sitting at a cafe, drinking wine contemplatively, apparently she had grown up near here. Shiele’s father had come to speak with her, may have assassinated Avis, and she thinks he may be retiring. After finishing her wine, she sits in the middle of the street, staring at a paving stone with a faint elvish inscription. An older half-elf passing by notices the inscription on the rock and seems to immediately guess who Shiele is, immediately ceasing her hysterics. People are beginning to stare, so Lillith suggests they take the conversation somewhere more private. The old man leads them to a nice home down the street, deftly disabling a complex ward on the entrance before leading them inside. The house is somewhat bigger on the inside, one of the first rooms being obviously a mages study. Lillith immediately wanders into the study to examine things, like the astrolabe.

The old man brings Shiele a familiar looking locket which is a match to the one her mother had given her, sending her promptly back into hysterical tears. He reveals that he is her uncle on the mother’s side and did not know that Shiele was still alive. He tells them about his years spent secretly aiding the fledgling resistance to the bigoted regime with magic. As the conversation grew a bit heated over the lack of contact over the years, it is revealed to the Uncle that Shiele’s father is still alive. He immediately wants to know the location of the father to which Shiele offers information on how to get into contact with him. The group eventually turns to drinking to deal with the emotional situation, quickly getting several of them drunk. Her uncle provides intoxication remedies, even though Shiele attempts to steal them, he gives them to her anyway. Finished with the conversation, Shiele grabs Lillith and teleports home to the keep.

Lillith takes a brief trip to Tritta to buy the Habberdashery in the square where Shiele’s home once stood, having a local notary write up a quick contract. Later during the 17 days, Lillith spends her time studying up on the Artathi, borrowing the books Riley had taken to do the same thing earlier, (all four of them). Based on information from the Shaari ancestral spirit and some of the information in the books, Lillith suspects the Arathi were the planet’s original inhabitants and their xenophobic habits are a result of the other races arriving on this world. Riley turns to intensive training when not studying the books, eager to become more powerful for another fight with a dragon. On Davros’s return to the keep, he immediately heads to meet and train with his order, greeting some new recruits. Sar’n visits his new mage school to work on planning and fortification for the possibility of a battle in the future. Shiele of course heads to her room to mope, in the locket, she finds pictures of a male elf and a female elf. Eventually she finds a subtle inscription on the locket, “Time passes but family is eternal”. She also realizes her locket has a similar inscription.

When Lillith eventually returns to take another trip with Shiele, she finds her asleep and gives her a loud and magical wake up call. With Shiele partying at the celestial winery, Lillith checks on her various business ventures in the City of Sigils. She finds that the Scro are doing an excellent job providing security as Sar’n instructed them. Davros and Riley take a trip to the City of SIgils as well to purchase some new items. Lillith purchases a bakery and a magic shop to add to her business collection. Several members of the party spend much of the intervening time reading magical tomes to boost their abilities, now that money is no longer an issue.

Two and a half weeks later, the party arrives in Tonka to meet with the Artathi emissaries, ready to depart by boat as the continent of the Artathi is warded against other means of entry. At first the Sal’Artathi monk, Amban, is a bit rude, but becomes genuinely contrite when Davros calls him out on it, remembering the diplomatic nature of their mission to Rentath. He escorts the party to the docks where a galleon sized ship awaits. The ship and its crew are human, as the monk explains that Artathi are not often disposed toward becoming Sailors. They meet the Captain, Wrolt, of the Wavedancer, his crew is working diligently in preparation for departure. He calls forth his First Mate to show the Kobowlders to their quarters. Captain Wrolt informs them the journey should take about 5 weeks (50 days) given normal weather conditions.

A short while later, Jendra and her associate, Kasa, appear along with almost a parade following them. There seems to be a ray of sunlight seems to land upon them as they walk and in their wake gold coins litter the street, eagerly scooped up by the crowd. Their tabards and vestments, draped over fine armor, bear a sigil remarkably similar to the mark upon Riley’s forehead. The gangplank turns to gold in their wake, fortunately the deck of the ship does not. Due to the delay, they are forced to wait for the next high tide which is in the morning. Jendra and Kasa retire to their state rooms, as does Riley to continue studying his tome. Sar’n and the others are disappointed with the estimated 5 weeks travel, luckily Lillith can use magic to keep the winds in their favor, potentially cutting 2 weeks off their journey. Lillith also offers to share her stock of Celestial ale with the crew, pleasing the captain greatly.

The following morning, the Wavedancer departs with high tide, Lillith using magic to give their sails a boost once a tug helps them leave the harbor. Davros helps her casting Heroes Feast to feed the crew and passengers with a nice meal to start out their journey the night before. Once finished with his studying, Riley spends most of the journey training on deck, occasionally sparring with Amban. During their journey, Davros manages to pry some information from Amban about the Artathi pantheon and their history. After three and a half weeks, they catch sight of the shoreline of Artath and adjust course to make port in a few days. The shores of the forbidden continent are mostly wild and untamed with little to no sign of civilization on the coasts. At nearly their fourth week of sailing, they finally arrive at Tonca. A vast city roughly 40 miles across with a huge, but sparsely used harbor. Two other ships of similar size are docked at the wharf of 5 slips in the large harbor, apparently crewed by humans. A wide river mouth sports numerous bridges and some fishing vessels. Most of the dock workers seem to be humans or elves.

Jendra and Kasa, who barely came on deck during the voyage are ready to depart as soon as they pull up to the wharf. Kasa, sees something ahead on the streets that clearly displeases him and leaps to the dock, tail twitching impatiently, followed shortly by Lillith and Shiele via magic. Jendra on the other hand appears to wait more patiently, but closer inspection detects minor signs of anticipation as well. Amban however manages to remain calm. The emissaries are displeased that there is no greeting party for their arrival, even though they are early. Kasa informs Lillith that all the clans had agreed to this venture before their departure and a four month absence was not enough to change that decision. Soon the gangplank is lowered and the rest of the party comes ashore, followed by the crew beginning to unload cargo.

As they near the streets at the end of the wharf, just before Jendra sets foot on land, armored Artathi (paladins/lions), monks (cheetahs), and sorcerors (Pumas) appear from alleyways. One of the lions greets them somewhat disdainfully. Leeroy manages a fairly intimidating roar, then licks his balls to show his disdain for the greeting party. The paladins depart first, followed by the sorcerors, and finally, with a degree of tact, the monks. Davros learns from Amban that the lead paladin was Thronin. They move into the city, seeing a bit of Artathi life in the streets and markets. Most ignore the visitors, but some stop to gawk. Letathen are occasionally seen in the background, doing the dirtiest work available for the forgotten caste. Lillith waves like a beauty queen, Sar’n also making friendly gestures that unsettle the locals. A few more monks and paladins join their escort along the way to the palace. Getting to the palace takes about 45 minutes from the harbor.

In the palace, some of them overhear Artathi whispers about the party, including some surprise over Riley. A chamberlain offers them an opportunity to freshen up, but Lillith and Sar’n simply cantrip the dust of the streets away. Their emissaries lead them into the court, Amban admits he’s eager to see the expressions of their reception. Jendra knocks on the massive, heavy looking doors before stiff-arming them open. She puts on her best strut as they enter, an early and successful mission. Kasa introduces her as a holy warrior and niece to the Emperor. The party follows close behind, very confident and proud, except for Shiele and her usual disinterested expression for events that don’t directly concern her as well as Sar’n’s pomp. They proceed down a narrow aisle in the court full of important looking people toward a dais where the Empress and Emperor sit on thrones. They all bow, even Leeroy, following Jendra’s example.

The Emperor is standing to greet them, looking rather self-satisfied and superior, until prior to the bow, Shiele had noticed a symbol on the walls and tapestries and remarked out loud that it resembles the mark on Riley’s forehead. His expression only briefly falters and he greets Jendra, pleased with her success. The emperor soon dismisses most of the court, except for clan leaders who need remain for a council meeting with the Emperor and the Kobowlders. The only commotion is when a Jaguar forces some other clan members to leave, knocking them down to assert his dominance. Jendra and her companions lead the way, behind the Emperor, motioning the Kobowlders to join them.

The Emperor seats himself in another throne in the council chamber and as soon as the rest are seated he makes it clear he wants to hear none of the arguments that have prevailed over the past months prior to the arrival of the Kobowlders. He instructs one of the Ahl’Artathi (Puma/sorcerors) to brief them on the Kofrath activity. So far, they’ve only seen minor troops, goblinoids and some of the lower Kofrath ranks. They are greatly surprised when Lillith asks if any dragons have entered the fray so far. So she shows them some highlights, via magic, of their recent battle in the north. Following the viewing, one of the Tal’Artathi (tigers) rudely asks to see Riley’s mark. Riley is not cowed by their behavior and the Emperor is not tolerating any dissent at this point, so he orders the speaker to ask more politely. When Riley finally removes his hood, their is quite a bit of outrage, even cries of blasphemy. Kasa declares that a prophecy has been fulfilled by the appearance of a Letathen bearing the mark of Amun, head of the Artathi pantheon. The outspoken tiger declares it to be heresy, quickly rebuked by the Emperor as the dissenter rises to leave. If he leaves, the Emperor threatens to exile him.

He reluctantly returns to his seat, despite telepathic taunts from Lillith, looking to Thronin for support. The Emperor then requests an impression of Riley from Amban, who provides a very positive review and shocks the council when he admits to having sparred with Riley. The council bursts into a flurry of chatter, quickly silenced by Sar’n and his Scro escort. The Emperor acknowledges him and Sar’n informs them of Riley’s resurrection, aided by Lillith with a magical view of the events. Seeing this, the monks look to the dissenting tiger, dismissing his argument outright as others of his caste scoot away from him, and he meekly retracts his objections. Thronin’s scowl, although it doesn’t seem possible, deepens.

Davros upsets the council by requesting a copy of the book that details the prophecy. The Empress informs him that outsiders are not permitted knowledge of the Artathi pantheon. Riley then inquires about reading up on the prophecy, Kasa informing him that this is the final prophecy and not much more information than this is available. Thronin can no longer hold his tongue and demands Riley face a trial, something that the other caste leaders must face to earn their positions. Without missing a beat, he of course accepts; Shiele and others are a little more hesitant, asking what this trial involves. The Emperor informs them that Riley must enter the temple to face the judgement of Amun. While some think he might need preparation, Thronin insists that having accepted, Riley must go through with the trial. Further conversation is ended by the Emperor, pending Riley’s undertaking of the trial the next morning. The Empress offers to educate him on the Artathi pantheon at Riley’s request, leading them out of the council chamber.

Since it had grown rather late, she leads them to the chambers they will be staying in for a meal and some religious and historical education before sleeping. Telling of their pantheon and early history when they were slowly driven from the northern continent, Sar’n inquires about dragons and she admits they coexisted but had almost no interaction. They also learn that the Kofrath attacks began in the south much earlier than in the north. Tactical speculation dominates the evening until the Empress departs for the evening. Perhaps the Kofrath have committed the bulk of their forces to the north and attacked the south for resources. Riley suggests Sar’n and Lillith scout the Kofrath forces after the trial tomorrow. The pair smirk conspiratorially and Sar’n inquires about any volcanoes active in Artath. Shiele of course had little interest in the discussion and fell asleep after eating.

Overnight, while Lillith is studying, she receives a telepathic communication from her bartender at her extraplanar business. Her father has arrived and is violently seeking information on her whereabouts, killing patrons and consuming the winery’s stock. She immediately returns to Kobowlders Keep to assemble a strike force to go into the City of Sigils after her father. Unfortunately, she did not take the time to inform the others where she was going. Leaving them to solve that mystery in the morning.

Davros is the first to greet Riley in the morning as he awaits an escort for the trial. Shortly followed by Sar’n, Leeroy, and his Scro escorts before Jendra and Kasa arrive to take him to the temple. The absence of Shiele and Lillith is not yet questioned by anyone. At the temple, they are greeted by the Emperor, Thrux, and Thronin, who hisses at Riley as he enters the temple, certain the Letathen will fail. As he enters just as the sun has begun to rise, the massive temple doors open unaided before him, revealing a ray of light shining through a hole in the ceiling of a large dark room. Striding in confidently, the doors shut behind the Kobowlder as he faces his trial.

Riska, military leaders and the party discuss the upcoming ceremonies in Tritta, their attendance may be compulsory. Riley relays any information he received from the Imperial Generals and the Order of Bahamut. Scouts have been dispatched to review the site of yesterday’s battle. Shiele and Lillith go for a drink to cheer up the once more weepy rogue, Riska joining them to talk. Riley decides to head out of the camp to scout around. Riska also learns that the source of their boozy generosity is recently purchased establishments in the City of Sigils. He also helps Shiele to realize she can fill her Everfull Mug with the celestial ale, surely everyone will appreciate a less mopey Shiele.

Sar’n and Davros spend some time reviewing enemy troop movements with a few generals. Sar’n postulates more ideas for extreme measures to battle the Kofrath, such as dropping kinetic strikes through portals into the Under Dark or using Orbs of Annihilation. They also review the various fronts of the war, considering possible battle plans for the future. Lillith eventually returns and joins them as they discuss some of the monstrous races in the mountainous spine of the continent. Plans for defending Kobowlders keep against dragons are also brought up.

Meanwhile, over the course of a few hours, Riley covers the distance to the battle site and begins scouting for signs of hostile movement. He soon finds a trail and begins to follow it, eventually determining it likely belongs to a friendly scout. Further down the trail, he finds signs of an ambush that the scout lost. Riley follows the tracks employing his feline tracking instincts and his extreme mobility to discover if the scout was captured or killed. A short while later, he comes to a wide clear cut path that an army likely moved through. Finding a bit of high ground and a tree, he can see smoke and perhaps the Kofrath column about a dozen miles away. In the sky, he can see some distant specks, perhaps wyverns. High above there’s another tiny speck which could be an eagle or a dragon, the distance makes it impossible to tell. Moving closer to the camp, Riley slows down and moves as stealthily as possible.

Within four miles of the camp, a spear flies at Riley. A small Kofrath juvenile seems to have spotted him and attempted to attack. The battle is over almost instantly, a single blow snapping the creature’s neck and killing it. It appears to be a young Kofrath, oddly enough the creature doesn’t disappear after death, not being sucked to hell as it’s elder kin are. Curious, he hides the body and continues scouting for the Kofrath camp. A patrol takes a break under a tree as he hides and he overhears that some of their hatchlings have escaped into the woods prior to indoctrination. Once they’ve moved on, he moves closer still to the camp and makes it to within two miles. Here he can get an idea of the camps size, position and defenses. With that complete, he sweeps the outer perimeter for a live feral, but is unable to find one. Swinging back around, he takes the body of the one he killed and heads back to the allied camp.

Lillith, Sar’n and Davros take some of their recent booze purchases back to the keep and head once more to the City of Sigils. Davros seeks out information on the Shaari while Sar’n acquires more real estate. Heading to the poorer part of town, he seeks individuals willing to part with their property. He meets an Ultraloth named Glorg who lost his war band but escaped before his own death, who may have some property to sell. Glorg has a rundown tenament, which he’s been staying on the top floor of. After being kept waiting for several hours, Glorg’s toughs escort him out back and take him through some manner of magical portal. Inside, he finds a faux-opulent room with a throne carved from what may be bone. Glorg is in possession of at least one property he’s willing to part with, however he’s asking 10 million for it. Sar’n haggles him down to eight, but Glorg wants to include a group called Scro as security for the new property.

The Scro are an unalligned group that seem to have simply appeared one day, little is known about them but their aggressive demeanor makes for good security. Glorg mentions that there are almost five thousand of them and they are born in litters. Sar’n finds it agreeable and reviews Glorg’s contract before completing the transaction. The Scro are extremely muscular, but look similar to Orcs, like a more evolved version. Glorg gives Sar’n a gem with which to contact him for future business. The head Scro, Rogar, goes with Sar’n to inspect the property he’s bought, site unseen. He hires 14 Scro, leaving them with instructions to fix the place up and work alongside his staff at the head shop.

Lillith works out a deal with yet another shop owner to acquire another business, then goes around look to purchase an inn as well. After a few unwilling owners, she does hear about an inn where the owner’s wife died and the kids went off adventuring. Feeling this might be her best bet, she heads there and finds a somewhat run down establishment that obviously was nice at one time. An ancient peg legged gnome eventually comes down to greet her and she offers to buy the business. The old gnome thinks it over before asking to see her hand, he reads her palm and offers a different deal. At a lower rate and so long as she agrees to be adopted into the family, so he can keep his vow not to sell, he’ll bring her into the business. His dwarven cook, Maribell, is eventually called out to meet Lillith. Once again, she lets her newest business acquisition know that Sar’n will be along to write up the contract.

Davros is the first to conclude his business and heads to Lillith’s winery to meet up with the others. As soon as he walks in, the place goes dead silent, as he is quite clearly completely out of place. He’s shown to a table out of the way of the patrons after introducing himself, although he attracts a few looks from other patrons. Fortunately, Lillith arrives before trouble can start, followed shortly by Sar’n and his retinue of Scro, including Rogar, his best friend Tum, and several others. While the others wait, Sar’n and Lillith draw up contracts for their new business transactions, delivering them promptly for signatures. At the inn, Maribell’s grandsons have already begun work on renovations, Deskin is behind the counter awaiting her return. After a quick review, the adoption and business papers are signed. Lillith shells out some additional funds for the renovations as well as letting Deskin know about her business connections with the winery and ale house.

Back at camp, Riley brings the corpse to the command tent where some officers are still working, but no generals or Riska. They gather some scholars and mages to study it, trying to learn what they can. Riley reports what he learned on his scouting trip, including the position and size of the Kofrath camp. Nearby, the shoppers return along with Sar’ns personal guards and greet the sentries. The others immediately begin to examine the feral Kofrath corpse and Riley shares his knowledge. One of the officers had pointed out that this also indicates the Kofrath have begun breeding on the surface as well now. Soon after, Riska and Shiele return to join the new discussion as they ponder the implications that Kofrath appear to be under some manner of contract. They discuss the possibility of breaking the contract to free the Kofrath. There is some interest in the indoctrination program, but like the sounds of screaming prisoners, there’s no way to get in and out alive. Riska expresses concerns over the reported size of the enemy camp and the number of troops that should be there.

The body is taken for examination by a more skilled practitioner of the medical arts while everyone begins preparing for the coronation in Tritta. Shiele and Lillith go to get dresses made, even Riley is required to get some fancy new formal robes amidst continued scouting expeditions. Several days pass and they attend the ceremony, joining the procession somewhere near the front despite their contributions to the world so far. Standing at the bier by the body, are three young men, clearly brothers, including the new Baron who is the youngest of the three. Amongst the many notable visitors, including Empress Sharissa, they sit through the funerary ceremony. A few people overhear Shiele muttering about wanting to kill the eldest son.

Once the funeral is over, the guests take refreshments while waiting for the coronation ceremony to begin. Shiele is constantly muttering with Riska, over what matter is uncertain. The eldest son, Avis, is constantly glaring at the Kobowlders and raised voices can occasionally be heard from his direction. Riska admits he may be the focus of Avis’s ire to Shiele, as the former general of Tritta may stil be tied up somewhere after his poor reaction to the news of succession. Lillith sashays over to talk with him, piling on the charm and giving him a display of her cleavage. She inquires over his disgruntled look and he offers to join the group and explain. Neither he nor the party displays any pleasantness toward eachother, but the discussion remains civil for the most part.

During the coronation, Avis steps up to challenge Arion when the opportunity arises. Alric, the middle brother stands as the champion for Arion and apparently is much more fit than the eldest. Avis pulls out a document, claiming to still be the heir to the throne while Alric provides another where Avis agreed to cede his claim. The documents are briefly reviewed and the abdication is upheld, leaving Arion still the heir apparent. Thoroughly thwarted, Avis sputters and complains before storming out of the chamber. The coronation continues without further interruption and Arion is crowned as the new Baron of Tritta.

The evening proceeds to the celebration stage, with everyone filtering past the new Baron to pay their respects. For the banquet, they are seated even better than at the coronation and the funeral before that. Avis eventually joins everyone, sitting at the head table with his brothers, but is now wearing all black in mourning of his father. He also drinks very heavily throughout the festivities. After the feast, there is a formal ball. Lillith continues her efforts to seduce Avis, allowing the drunken noble to paw at her somewhat until he offers to invite her up to his chambers. At some point, Shiele and Riska slip off for a privae meeting.

Around midnight, a paige comes along to lead Lillith up to Avis’s quarters. She briefly contacts Shiele on her way up, although she responds that she is busy. Lillith sees herself into the chamber after the paige knocks and leaves. Inside it’s dimly lit, there isn’t much activity as she approaches the bed undoing her dress. Behind the curtain, Avis is on the bed and another man is tending to him with a kit of needles and bottles which he rolls up in leather case. He apologizes, telling her that Avis has had a heart attack, remarking that vengeance had to be delivered before he could meet Shiele while advising her to call the guard quickly. The assassin helps her retie the back of her dress and she moves into the hall, shrieking for the guards and otherwise making a compelling distraught woman.

A cleric quickly runs to tell the new baron who somberly announces the death and ends the celebration. Rooms are offered for guests unless they wish to leave. Riley is the first to depart, ready to get back to more pressing matters. Shiele and Riska of course get a room, as does Davros, while Sar’n teleports home along with his guard, Rogar. Lillith is asked a few more questions before being shown to a room for the night. Those that remained in Tritta for the night meet up to discuss the assassination with Sharissa, Skree, and Riska, most expressing regrets they were not the ones to do the deed. There is some mention of a Resistance possibly being responsible for the deed.

The next morning, Lillith is called to speak with Arion, a high priest of Heironeous called Ahmid, and officials. Skree and Davros also sit in on the discussion. After reviewing testimony, they find no reason to suspect Lillith and dismiss the meeting. After Shiele and Riska finally roll out of bed, she goes back to the keep looking for Riley and Sar’n to attend some sort of important business meeting. Shiele teleports them once they’ve been roused to the main hall, they appear before Duralith, the chief of spies for Tritta. He informs them of Vilma’s progress with Clarinette, uniting the Shaari and what they’ve learned about the feral Kofrath corpse. The body was very similar to a Kobold, but had some minor differences, such as the breath weapon’s respective glands were not fully developed. He also tells them that as word of the red dragons involvement spreads, other dragon breeds are reconsidering their participation in the war. Some of the freed Drow from an earlier campaign have been working as spies, delving into the Under Dark. They cannot be certain how widespread knowledge of their new tactics is among the Kofrath as they do not always work in concert.

Duralith also passes along word that an Artathi envoy has been requesting the Kobowlders by name, mentioning that their continent is seeing Kofrath incursions as well. In fact, they’re in the Tritta keep already, having arrived shortly after the former Baron’s funeral. Riley is ready to go already, but the other convince him he has to stay for the funeral. Shiele seems to want to linger and get some things done. Once the second funeral passes, the party begins preparations for their new missions.

Riley and Sar’n test out their Lawn Mower weapon plan to make sure it works, while the others prepare for the strike on Kofrath forces. Everyone rests up, readying for the fight, eagerly waiting another opportunity to engage the Kofrath. The elite troops selected for the strike gather in a field for the attack, ready to go, while Davros gives a stirring speech to the gathered troops in the background. The drunk, dwarven mage teleports the lot into the mountains to fight the Kofrath. Riska quickly lays out the battle plan, to let the Kofrath get out into the open and cut them off from retreat before striking and everyone moves into position.

Riley sets up in the path of the enemy with the Tritta troops while all the others set up under the cloak of invisibility along the path. As the Kofrath emerge from the cave and move toward the ambush, the forward elements note that the force is larger than previously anticipated, and also includes wyverns and salamanders. Perhaps the attack will be a hit and run after all. The Kofrath troops fan out to attack Riley and the Tritta troops, Sar’n and Lilith see some in the back go invisible. Riley stands before the shield wall as they fire volleys of crossbow bolts on approach, deflecting missiles to lure in the enemy troops. A powerful looking Kofrath comes forward from the halted ranks and Riley moves forward to meet him, encouraging the other troops to wait to spring the ambush. He breathes fire, Riley leaping into the air as it splashes against the shields behind him. Other troops fan out to surround the squad as even more troops spill out of the cave. Riley teleports behind him and lays him flat with 15 blows in a single round, following by a blast of Searing Light from his circlet. The battle now begins in earnest as the leader stands up, flaring out a large pair of wings.

With a taunt to his adversary, Riley drops a web on the nearest Kofrath troops rushing forward and springs into the sky to launch the signal. He triggers the Tensors Floating Disk in mid-air and activates his Blade Barrier, threshing the troops below with a 20 foot high wall of magical blades turned on its side. The magical lawn mower shreds troops as Sar’n and Lilith begin their descent. Lilith drops Quaal’s Feather Tree tokens, which turn into full size, massive oak trees as they fall and soon plow into the troops below. Shiele makes her first stealth strike, teleporting behind an enemy and shanking him brutally.

The enemy below quickly targets Riley and dispels his Blade Barrier, followed by a variety of spells. Riley dodges lightning bolts in midair, some of the spells are haste on the troops below. However the Fireballs cast a the Tritta troops do hit and take out a few of them. Another volley of crossbow bolts fly at them as well, but none fall this time. Davros moves in to attack, activating his imbued stone of Tensors Floating disk horizontally and casts Rain of Embers on it, sending a blast of fire and divine magic into the Kofrath ranks.

At the mouth of the cave, the one directing troops transforms into a red dragon and heads toward Sar’n and Lilith. The Kofrath swing away from the center of the field to attack the troops surrounding them, screaming and launching breath weapons. Crossbow bolts launch at close range on the south flank into the charging Kofrath as Riska shouts a charge. On the north flank, the charging Kofrath also meet a barrage of crossbow bolts, some even flee from Davros’s fear aura. On either side, it is a blood bath among the assaulting forces. Shiele begins the evacuation, teleporting troops out as quickly as she can to the evac site. Sar’n and Lilith make a snap decision to utilize the secret weapon they’ve concocted. Full retreat is in effect now and Riley teleports back to the Tritta troops. With a quick command, he orders them to prepare to evacuate, using his Abundant Step, after killing two more Kofrath, to teleport his squad to safety.

As the massive ball of lava hardens and falls from a high altitude, Sar’n and Lilith teleport to Davros’s flank and begin evacuating people with teleportation. Davros blasts off a spell and carries the nearest troops away with his boots of teleportation, with a quick warning from Sar’n that he does not need to return as the rest can be taken by others. Riska and the last of his troops fight until they’re evacuated also. Riley’s adversary roars in outrage and transforms into a mature red dragon, crushing nearby Kofrath in the process. He turns on the northern flank and blasts them with flames, killing several, including many Kofrath in his path. Those that survive attack the northern flank also, felling more of the attack force. On the southern flank, more of the attacking force falls to enemy attacks as Shiele returns to evacuate the remainder.

The quick thinking Sar’n imbues a copper coin with anti-magic field, throwing it to the dragon who greedily snaps it up and quickly comes to regret this decision. Back at the evacuation site, Riley attempts to wake their drunken, dwarven mage to get ready to teleport everyone back to camp. He unleashes a temporarily incapacitating belch of unusual strength in Riley’s face. Back on the north flank, Lilith blasts more Kofrath with lightning and prepares to evacuate just before the impact of their secret weapon. The Kofrath blast back, but Sar’n and Lilith manage to negate some of it with their rods of absorb. Davros casts healing spells to help keep the north flank from collapsing entirely. The dragon picks the coin from his gullet and throws it back at Sar’n, looking rather annoyed. The anti-magic field coin bounces off Sar’n’s adamantine wings and lands between the opposing forces. Riska gathers the forces, pulling back slightly and tightening up to teleport to safety. The growing hoard of Kofrath attacks again, landing a few more blows and felling a few more soldiers before the remains of the attack force teleport to safety. Shiele gets knocked down, but quickly springs back up to teleport away nineteen of the thirty-seven remaining troops including Riska. Sar’n flicks the coin back at the dragon before teleporting Leeroy and six others away to safety.

As Riley recovers enough to attempt to wake the dwarf again, the hardening lava ball impacts back at the site of the battle. The flash is bright enough that even the half asleep drunk can see it, Lilith manages to grab the last of the assault force just before the blast hits their location. Seconds later the massive boom of the impact reaches them at the evacuation site as members of the party yell a warning to take cover. In the aftermath, they realize that they lost a third of the assault force, but wiped out thousands of Kofrath. The party takes stock and talks briefly as their mage gathers his wits to activate the retreat spell. The Kobowlder squad took only a single loss, while the Tritta squad lost the second least, the other squads lost a quarter to a half of their members.

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The injured are seen to, Riska asks gives everyone two hours to recuperate before meeting to discuss the mornings events and their implications for the future. Lilith and Sar’n take a short detour to the City of Sigils and Lilith buys a winery and brewery for some reason. Kobowlders drink for free at the celestial ale house. They totally miss the meeting, but everyone else shows up. The discussion turns rather heated as the leaders of the armies learn the scope of the battle facing them. An elderly half-dwarf brings up that the Kofrath will likely use their subterranean nature to their advantage in the war. Fighting them underground would be even more dangerous as they employ Earth Elementals. RIska suggests a risky plan to draw the Kofrath into assaulting the Kobowlders Keep by drawing back the other forces into a position that would make it appear to be a tempting target. The plan does seem promising, but will obviously require some discussion amongst the Kobowlders. Finally, Sar’n and Lilith show up to contribute to the meeting, Sar’n ponders the idea of getting the enemies of the red dragons involved in the fight against the Kofrath. While an estimated 7 out of 10 thousand Kofrath reinforcement troops were destroyed, future prospects for the war are grim.

In a whole new market of problems, Sar’n and Lilith brought back celestial ale and fiendish wine for the troops in an ill conceived gesture. As people scramble to control the flow of alcohol into the troops from the wagon of casks, Riley heads back to the Keep to inform Skree and Cort. Davros also heads back to discuss things with the sect of Pelor in the Keep. The celestial ale imbues everyone with an extremely pleasant mood, while the fiendish wine makes those that drink it rather angry drunks. Luckily, more people are drinking the more plentiful celestial ale than the fiendish wine and someone switches Shiele to the happy juice instead. Unfortunately, the officers are drinking the wine and getting into each other’s faces. Some quick thinking MP’s help keep them under control with drinks of the Celestial Ale. Lilith makes certain to set aside some ale for the MP’s for later. Soon they discover that the casks and barrels are all imbued to hold larger than normal quantities of booze. By the next morning, the Tritta officers have been tied up in their tents to sleep it off while most other officers are still drinking with their troops. During the night, Sar’n heads out to the City of Sigils again, this time he purchases a shop, one that sells special herbs.

Back at the Keep, Riley tracks down Cort and Skree, filling them in on the days events. They feel the Keep is not very well defended for a dragon assault and the Citadel is woefully unprepared for such a battle also. They send out envoys and messengers with the information about the new events in the war. Luring the Kofrath into attacking the Kobowlders keep would be very risky considering the dragons would be largely unharmed by the pocket gnome defense grid and fighting more than a few dragons at a time is likely to end poorly. Riley goes to the Citadel of Bahamut to seek aid from the dragons, while Davros goes to inform High Priest Axor about recent events as well. Davros is greeted by guards and after a moment led in to meet with the High Priest, they are pleased to learn he has successfully recover the shield of Pelor. At the Citdale, Riley is met with numerous guards standing ready to defend against attackers. While Phalieux is currently out in the field, the monk is escorted up to meet with a different leader of the order. They meet in a room with magical windows observing battlefields around the world. Kaden, Phaliuex’s adjunct and high priest of Bahamut, quickly launches into discussion with Riley after he informs him of recent events. Kaden provides an in depth strategic analysis of the current situation for Riley, including strategems and likelihoods. He is interested in the new academy, but Riley can provide little information and suggests more knowledgeable magic users meet to discuss relations on the matter. Kaden doesn’t believe they can offer much to the academy, but will do what can be done, suggesting searching in the baronies for magic users and teachers. Davros learns that the order is still searching for five pieces of Pelor’s panoply, others have recovered their targets and returns home later that evening. Riley is then transported from the citadel to inform Empress Sharissa and her generals/advisers about the recent events, heading home the next morning.

The following morning at the encampment, morale is high and hangovers rampant, some are still drunk and singing. By this time, Sar’n has returned from his second shopping trip. A messenger arrives at Riska’s tent with important information, relaying a secret and curious message which Shiele is there to overhear. It seems that somewhere, there has been a shift in power that works in Riska’s favor. Shortly after that, he calls in the Kobowlders present and various important generals and officers to inform them that the Baron of Tritta has died and a successor chosen. Coincidentally, the successor is much more favorable to the war effort and alliance of the baronies. They impart that a solemn ceremony will be held for the people of Tritta. Officers from the encampment are being summoned home by the new baron, who happens to be the youngest son after the oldest son abdicated.

The party appears in the Great Hall, surprising some guards and servers. Lilith learns about the Pocket Gnomes and others learn she is a Tiefling. Riley hands over the soul shards and other valuables he was carrying to Boboran, his pocket gnome, to store in the vaults. The rescued slaves are brought out of Sar’n’s pocket dimension and released into the care of others at the keep. Davros takes the boy off to the Keep’s Chapel to talk. When Shiele wanders off, the others chat with the Tiefling slave briefly, who is interested in joining them. Lilith takes the slave Tiefling off to the Monk’s training yard to assess his abilities and potential contribution to the keep. Sar’n takes the Elven slave girl to get her tongue back with the healers.

On the way to the temple, Davros explains to the boy, Eldrin, the origins of the Kobowlders and their quest in the Gray Waste. The Chapel, devoted to numerous deities, has grown since the Kobowlders founded the Keep. Davros attempts to convince him that the shield belongs to Pelor and that he should take interest in their cause. When it seems that nothing will convince him, the statue of Pelor is animated by divine presence. The god himself convinces Eldrin to trade the shield for one more his size and blesses his armor and sword as well. Pelor thanks Davros for his efforts and asks him to continue aiding his companions in their journeys. As he’s leaving, Sar’n arrives with the Elven maiden, getting her healed and trying to guide her into her new found freedom.

In the training yard, Lilith demonstates some magic for the male Tiefling, Dole, and assesses his abilities. Some particularly loud magic causes a momentary stir until Davros arrives to calm things down. Eldrin wants to spar and makes a rather unfortunate soldier regret volunteering. Lilith mischievously summons some fiendish wolves to help the fighters and Eldrin practice fighting as a group. The wolves are quickly dispatched without any serious injuries. Sar’n turns up in time to catch the training session and tosses an Earth Elemental into the mix. They manage to keep it at bay until Eldrin launches a powerful attack to lop off an arm from the elemental. Unfortunately, it takes quite a bit out of him and leaves him exhausted on the ground. Skree finally turns up after all the racket has died down a bit and pocket gnomes pop in and out on errands, including finding a pocket gnome for Lilith and rooms for the new arrivals.

Phaliux died in an ill-conceived, drunken attempt to felate a Terasc. Shiele asked Davros to marry her, but Clarinette had already proposed to the Dildo of the Gods, who accepted. Lilith did a bunch of math, but nothing of note.

After eating, Riley seeks out Cort to find out more information about his quest to Artathi lands. Numerous youngsters are coming and going from Cort’s tower, some even taking lessons from him. At one point it gets so crowded that Riley moves to the ceiling and finds Cort teaching and looking as though his soul were sucked out. He immediately becomes more animated and shoos out the students to aid a member of the Kobowlders. In just a few sentences, Cort is overwhelmed by the implications and summons the rest of the Kobowlders and Skree to go over their recent adventures. Fizwidget, Cort’s pocket gnome appears in the courtyard where the others are training and beckons them to come join the discussion. The Pocket Gnome elder teleports everyone up to Cort’s tower when they hear about the groups interaction with the Blood War. With the party together, they explain their adventures over the previous few days to Cort.

Notices are dispatched to inform numerous individuals of influence about the development in the Blood War. Cort also fills them in on the current events of the prime material plane. The Kofrath have begun making a push north of the Keep (now about 80 miles away). Some of the monstrous races and beings allied with the Elves after being pushed out of their territory. The Elves are holding against the onslaught, the Empire has yet to have any major battles, and the armies of the Baronies have skirmished repeatedly. The Dwarves and Elves have sent some troops to support and train others for the war. The war is not going poorly, but it is not going well either. The coming winter will aid the Kofrath as their supply lines are all underground. The Gnomes have allied with the other races, despite their displeasure with the presence of the Pocket Gnomes.

The party offers a share to aid in the war effort, over a billion gold worth of valuables, starting with 10 strands of gems from the curtain valued at roughly 48 million gold. Davros passes on the blessing from Pelor to the rest of the party, increasing their abilities. The sheer mind boggling volume of wealth merits a deep level of concern for the economies of the prime material plane and the Society of the Tower in the other planes as well. The party decides to head next to the front lines, Shiele excited about the prospect for unknown reasons, while Riley is interested in fighting some Kofrath. It will take a week or so to plan and prepare for their next adventure, so the group spends some time at the keep. Riley and Davros training with their respective Orders and doing some research. Riley is studying up on the Artathi for their future visit and Davros is learning about the Planes from Sar’n. Funds are assigned to expand the magical learning institutions of the Keep, which is just Cort at this point. Shiele keeps somewhat to herself, preparing for whatever scheme she’s hatching. Sar’n and Cort work together with some Djinn, building a flying magical citadel in the sky over the keep for the new magical academy, The Academy of the Arcane Arts. Lilith seeks out some additional custom gear and training tomes, in addition to training with Dole and Eldrin.

After two weeks, the party heads out toward the front lines to meet up with Riska. They travel through the City of Sigils with the supply train first, encountering some Githyanki escorting the supplies. Through another portal, they appear in the forested mountains near the frontlines north of the Kobowlders territory. Arriving in a clearing with standing stones on one side and a trail on the other, it’s not far away that they reach a military encampment. Armies of different Baronies and mercenary bands are camped here in distinct areas of the encampment, including the Barony of Tritta, one of their least favorite nobles. As they pass through the camp toward the center, someone comes running toward the supply convoy calling out to Aiden, who no one seems to know except Sar’n. He claims he was coming to check on his supplies and backs off when the Gith warn him away.

Guards at the command tent initially don’t want to let anyone in until the Kobowlders name drop. The Gith drop off their supplies, planning to return with another shipment in two weeks. Riska rushes out to greet Shiele and welcomes the party into the command tent. On the sand table, they note that while the Kofrath have more troops and have advanced considerably, losses have not been too severe. Tritta has not been working well with others, even though they are a reasonably good fighting force by themselves, this has cost the was some progress. While Shiele has no interest in the discussion of acquiring Tritta’s cooperation, the bulk of the party remains to debate. Talk turns to campaign strategies and soon Eldrin’s presence is discovered by the Gith. Apparently, the boy tagged along desiring to fight Kofrath based on their reputation as slavers. The party fills in Riska over drinks on their adventures since the last time they met and he shares more details on the war’s progress with them.

The party spends the night in a spell summoned cottage summoned by Lilith. Riska’s attache’ is quite interested in the concept as it might be applied to the rest of the armies, a bit of thought is invested in the idea. During the night, Sar’n and Lilith make another trip to the City of Sigils to buy up more supplies, arms and armor for the troops. In the morning, they meet again with Riska, Shiele stumbling out of his tent as everyone approaches. Sar’n and Lilith show him their haul from the shopping trip overnight, bringing back a table that supplies a Hero’s Feast for breakfast. Riska’s brother soon arrives and is shown to the stash of new items as well. He admits that the troops from Kobowlders Keep are the most disciplined and well trained and will likely receive most of the new gear. Soon they begin describing their plans for aiding the war effort.

The leadership of the armies would like to launch a strike on Kofrath troop transit lines to prevent more powerful troops from reaching the front lines. The plan so far is to send a squad per person along with the Kobowlders to make the attack, as they will likely be facing hundreds of Kofrath that are more powerful than the common Kofrath soldiers. They also securely discuss the problem posed by Tritta, certain elements in the Tritta forces are not xenophobic like the rest and there is also a plan in motion to rearrange the power structure of the Barony of Tritta to a more favorable regime. After some more discussion, Snowfield, the favorable sub-commander among the Tritta troops, arrives and is informed that he needs to select a strike force to aid the Kobowlders. Afterward, the various leaders of Baronies and other forces come through and are asked to bring along a select cadre of troops for the strike force. Lastly, they summon a dwarven mage and drunk who will be helping with transportation and strategy for the strike. With a solid plan in place to rapidly attack and retreat, doing a lot of fast damage in order to force a retreat or at least diminish the Kofrath forces.

Part of their strategy involves using Shiele’s teleportation, a quick experiment reveals that she can teleport up to thirty people. The helm is apparently even more powerful than a Greater Teleport spell, perhaps even deity level. More ideas and strategies are tossed around while Riley heads off to train a bit with the Kobowlder troops. An idea to teleport builders into the sky evolves into using Sar’n’s pocket dimension to carpet bomb the enemy with molten lava. Sar’n and Lilith test out this idea in a remote and obscure location.

Just outside the portal from the Nine Hells in the Gray Wastes, the party members who need protection, don their cloaks. Shiele is still and once again an emotional wreck, Sar’n’s Truesight allows him to see the divine aura coming from Shiele, primarily from her abdomen. The Gray Wastes are a foggy, blasted landscape with little to navigate by. Davros consults his book for directions while Lilith checks on Shiele. He relates the tale of the lost Paladin to them, who had come to search for his lost lover. The farther he gets from the portal, the more text appears in the book, the Paladin made his way through the Gray Wastes toward a town. The book glows, leading their way ahead of them. The story goes on to tell that the Paladin’s Lover was cast down to the Hells, but she gave up their child to him so it would not grow up down there. Soon they spot a large tower in the distance and spend the next few hours walking towards it. It only seems to grow taller, but not particularly closer.

Sar’n and Lilith suspect it is the Tower of Bone, Shiele grows impatient and teleports herself along with with Lilith to the base of the tower. Davros inquires about the tower with Sar’n, who believes the pair to be dead already. Nonetheless, they take off at full speed to catch up, which just means Davros catches a ride on Leeroy with Sar’n. The Tower of Bone is occupied by the Yugoloth, amongst others, and is made from the 20 mile high spine of a dead god. As the others approach even faster than before, the story fills out faster as well, detailing the Paladin’s experience under the influence of the Grays only kept sane by the child. Lilith and Shiele pass the time, as they wait outside the tower, talking. Grudgingly she related some of their adventures, including the tower, rescuing the princess, etc.

As they wait, a patrol comes around the tower and they take cover near a dead tree. The patrol comes to a halt where they Shiele and Lilith were previously resting, perhaps detecting something. The patrol throws a dark rock next to them and Shiele immediately notices that she cannot teleport away, demanding that they come out and identify themselves. The pair try to make a break for it, but Shiele is hit immediately with a crossbow bolt and goes down. Lilith is also hit, but manages to stay on her feet and drag Shiele far enough to teleport away. They appear back at the portal, Lilith’s only other point of reference on this plane. She does her best to tend to Shiele’s injuries, but the crossbow bolts were apparently loaded with some kind of poison or tranquilizer. In her opinion, Lilith’s best option is to reconnoiter with the party, so she uses the mule from her complete adventuring kit to carry Shiele.

As the others continue toward the tower, Riley spots something on the horizon and they pause to prepare for the possible encounter and Riley catches his breath while the others prepare for potential trouble. Once the approaching party is closer, they can tell that it consists of 10 Mezzoloths, 4 Necyloths, 2 Arcanaloths, 4 Canoloths, and an Ultroloth. Once within range, the oncoming party forms ranks and as soon as they do, the group cast their remaining buffs. Sar’n teleports behind them while the other three face them head on. The Ultroloth immediately spins around and casts a wall of force, which has little effect on Sar’n’s spell, even though the Ultroloth resists. At the front, Riley leaps into the fray, pounding a Mezzoloth into the ground with a flying Ring of the Ram attack and pummels him into hamburger with a flurry of blows. Davros, mounted on Leeroy, unleashes a massive blast with Searing Light on a large portion of the enemy column, quickly followed with a fireball from his helm.

The Yugoloths immediately summon reinforcements and bring out their anti-magic stones. Sar’n quickly shouts for a parlay with the enemies once he sees the new troops arriving. The Ultroloth does not respond well and attempts to blast Sar’n with arcane energy, who responds with a disintegration blast which is dispelled. Riley lashes out in a circle, kicking everything in reach after a Canoloth attacks with its barbed tongue. Things quickly go south as anti-magic fields diminish the parties abilities. Davros is knocked unconscious and dragged away, Sar’n is stuck in a cage and Riley has to use his Abundant Step to break from the fray and heal himself.

Sar’n finally manages a truce by hiring the lead band of Yugoloth, unfortunately, Davros was captured by a different band, who teleport away immediately. Soon after the fight, Lillith and Shiele arrive. They discuss their next course of action with the lead of their current action in captivity. For a soul shard, they get an antidote to the poison affecting Shiele. They negotiate the terms of their contract with the Yugoloth band. For three thousand soul shards and a demon horn, they agreed to protect the party from others, help recover Davros, and then leave the Tower of Bone. Before setting out, they stash most of their valuables in Sar’n’s pocket dimension.

The Ultroloth leads them through a portal he creates to his factions section of the Tower of Bone. The party waits in the entry room while their hired hands look for information on Davros. After a few hours, he returns to tell them Davros was sold to a faction that uses slaves for entertainment, particularly in an arena. He then leaves again to attempt to secure the release of Davros. Meanwhile in the slave pens, Davros is taken to train for the arenas along with some other slaves.

Davros is pitted against a tiefling in the first practice match, where he is not allowed to use magic by the Yugoloth overseer. After giving his opponent a beating, Davros is pitted against a small boy in oversized gear. The first blow exchanged between them results in a burst of divine light that draw complaints from the Nycoloth overseers. Davros gets a glimpse of the boys armor, which is in fact the armor of Peylor, which belonged to the child’s father, along with the shield he had declined to use before. After another divine burst, they break up the fights and send them over to exercise. Where Davros tries talking with the boy. After giving them a healing potion, they are sent back to their rooms to eat, then off to clean.

The next morning, the Ultroloth returns and informs them that the only way to set Davros free is via defeating him in the arena. Riley feels quite confident that he can take out Davros safely and volunteers. Lilith inquires with the Ultroloth about the terms and conditions of the arena fights. He informs them that the ring is shielded against any sort of extra-planar escape and also gives them a tablet enchanted to scry on the fight so the party can watch. Meanwhile, up in the slave pits, Davros is informed that he will be fighting in the arena. Davros tries to impart some knowledge to the boy in regards to the shield, now suspecting the boy may be the child of the lost Paladin. He also tries to convince the child that he may be able to help him escape. Although the child cares very little for Peylor, he does care for his lost father.

Buffs in place, they are led into the arena. With only seconds before the fight, Riley and Davros quickly converse telepathically. Riley lets Davros in on their plan to rescue him, but Davros believes he has found the son of the Lost Paladin. While putting on an impressive show, they try to work out what to do. After some telepathic debate, they eventually determine that Riley needs to win and then they can form a new plan to rescue the boy afterward. After beating Davros unconscious, Riley showboats a bit as they are led out of the arena. Davros is stabilized and the Yugoloths lead them back upstairs to celebrate with the others.

The party telepathically quickly discusses the new information and attempts to entice their Yugoloth compatriot to help them acquire the boy. They soon begin forming a plan which help him weaken a rival and they will get the slaves out as well. The Ultroloth leaves them to find information to finalize his plan and sends them food later with an elven slave girl. Meanwhile the party rests and recuperates, Riley prepares for the possibility that he may have to fight again. Schiele eats and drinks her fill from the food brought for them, Lilith joins her as they drink. As time passes, Sar’n hatches a telepathic plan to free the slave girl. Riley attempts to convince the others to have a backup betting plan for their Yugoloth compatriot in the event that Riley must fight and somehow loses, in hopes of remaining in his good graces as long as possible. Lilith pays for the slave girl and they secret her away inside the pocket dimension, promising to get her to safety.

In the morning the Ultroloth comes to them with his plans. Having convinced his competitor to a 2v1 fight against RIley, they plan for Davros to sneak in and steal the slave fighters, causing a forfeit and loss of reputation for his rival. The boy and the Tiefling fighter slaves will be hidden in the pocket dimension and the party will leave once Riley returns. Convincing the fighters to participate turns out to be very easy. At the arena, there is quite a bit of waiting, while Riley paces in the ring, playing his part. Their compatriot Ultroloth argues loudly and publicly with his competitor before the other Yugoloths. Finally the competitor is forced to capitulate and RIley is led back to the rest of the party. They pay the remainder of their agreed upon sum and depart via Sar’n’s magic, first slipping into the pocket dimension, then home to the Keep. Sar’n brings Riley, Schiele, Lilith, and Davros home to the great hall, about late evening in the fall, waiting to bring their freed slaves out of the pocket dimension for the moment.

Loot in hand, the party heads back out to the center tower of the Shaari complex and place the bricks around the door frame. The door opens with a clicking sound to reveal a relatively small room with two golems in it, their eyes glowing silver. To the left, the party sees a set of doors, however Sar’n points out a set of magical doors only he can see thanks to his True Sight. Shiele makes a brief attempt convince everyone to go home, to no avail. Davros and Sar’n attempt to interact with the magic doors, but can only seem to touch the wall. Lillith convinces Vilma, with the aid of some magic to see the door, to try opening the hidden. Shiele and Clarinette wait outside, weary of the golems within. Even Vilma doesn’t seem to have any luck opening the invisible doors, so Lilith casts knock. The spell promptly reflects back harmlessly, knowledgeably telling the others it seems to be a vastly powerful Hold Portal spell shielding the door from entry. They do locate a small hole that might be for a key.

With no luck opening the magical doors, Vilma and Riley head over to the doors on the left. A hall lies beyond, most of the group proceeds while Sar’n spends a moment pondering the door until he gets the stink eye from a golem. Lilith convinces Shiele and Clarinette to join them inside. Down the hall, they pass through a small foyer and find a room with more book shelves and a stone bench which leads to a room with three stone boxes. The lids of which are considerably heavy, which leads Riley to hurt his back attempting to open one. Lilith attempts to help, but they just end up getting Vilma to open them and find nothing but dust. Disappointed, the party moves on, heading further into the tower, entering a large room with benches lined up in two rows down the room. Lilith starts running down the benches and gets a sudden sensation of cold on each bench. Leading her to quickly stop and try to get others to check it out by sitting on the benches. Shiele sits down, feeling an immediate chill, as does Davros who only touches a bench. As Lillith reaches the far end of the room, she looks back and sees ghostly images of people on the benches. Riley explores the room from above as usual. Soon they notice the room is a bit hazy and begin to notice the images as well.

Shiele panics and attempts to run from the room, plowing straight into Clarinette. The room appears to be full of Shaari spirits or perhaps after images, sitting on the benches waiting. Some believe it to be some sort of projection, but can find no source. Finally, they move on, through the doors to another hallway leading them to a small room and into another room beyond that. The party begins to notice how barren the rooms are, almost devoid of furniture. There is some debate over whether when the previous inhabitants fled, they had time to take anything with them. Davros’s knowledge of stone masonry helps him notice the faint outline of where things once were, such as tapestries or shelves. Feeling a bit impatient, Vilma moves ahead and finds the furniture piled up in the corner of the next room. Lilith climbs the pile of furniture, knocking over a few things. On the ceiling, she finds some sort of design on the ceiling and notices it actually covers the whole ceiling. She calls everyone’s attention to it and removes some of the dust for a better look. The patterns on the ceiling may be some kind of star chart, but not one anyone recognizes. Some of the more educated party members discuss new theories about the origins of the Shaari, including extra-terrestrial beginnings. Riley posits some more grounded theories, finding the stellar notions a bit extravagent. Perhaps it’s simply artistic or some sort of stylized chart belonging to the lost Shaari civilization.

Vilma moves on, disinterested in the star chart and the party begins to follow. Lilith gets a vision from her god, vindicating some of her suspicions and proceeds to fall off the pile of furniture. Soon they rejoin the others and find a large, ornate door with an unusual representation of the sun and other circles decoratively engraved or embossed on the doors. Before Vilma can try to open the door, Riley suggests checking for traps, at which point they find some sort of gas trap. After some discussion, Vilma volunteers to trigger it anyway once the others move safely away. As she begins to open the door, her arm begins to glow silver and silvery fire engulfs her as her eyes glow also. The gas quickly dissipates, but the flames remain and don’t seem to bother Vilma. Inside, she comes face to face with a statue that bears her an uncanny resemblance. Shiele, Lilith and Clarinette all attempt to spring into action, Riley manages to keep Clarinette back, but the danger had apparently already passed. Lilith reaches Vilma first and bounces off as though hitting a wall, who doesn’t even seem to be aware of her surroundings. The statue holds a sword in one hand, point down and in the other a strange piece of gold and silver metal. Attempting to touch it sends Riley flying across the room after a jolt from the statue.

Vilma finally snaps out of her stupor and explains, more clearly and concisely than ever, that she is the direct descendant of the last Shaari King and carries his sword. She takes the small piece of metal from the statues hand, perhaps a key, and explains it will allow them access to the magic door by the entrance. Lilith also asks her to check over the star chart again as Vilma seems to have also gained some form of ancestral knowledge. Shiele noticed that there seemed to be a section of the building missing, perhaps a hidden door, based on her knowledge of duneoneering. The wall there vibrates, but no one can find any means of access. Ultimately they have to move on and check on the star chart again. Vilma now believes that the chart represents the stars over the Shaari’s home. On their way back to the spirit chapel, they find the final side of the ten foot void in the final room. Lilith attempts to use magic to bypass the wall and enter the space, fortunately no one is harmed in the magical backlash.

Turning back to the spirit projection, Vilma grows sad, recalling the loss of her people and growing angry over an enemy she can’t remember. Soon they’re back at the main entrance, ready to check out the magical door. Once the key is inserted, the door becomes visible to everyone. Instead of checking for traps, Vilma just opens it and heads right in at the lead of the group. Inside they find a few rows of desk and a decorative frieze on one wall. This leads to another room with two desks in it and some chairs, all made of stone. Past this is an antechamber with a golem on either side of the next door. This room is square with a 10×10 recessed platform in the center surrounded by posts at each corner which reminds them of the elevator inside the goblin/hobgoblin fortress. Vilma takes up everyone that will fit on the platform, which only excludes Sar’n and Leeroy (his pet Dire Phynxian). They note from below that the platform is actually a solid pillar made of gears and magical silver light. The room above seems to be an exact duplicate of the room below. Vilma makes a second trip to bring the rest of the party up.

The room outside the elevator on the second floor seems to be a series of alcoves containing offices. Vilma can read some of the words over each alcove, this seems to be some kind of office hall for records or official activities. Shiele shows a lot of interest in the alcove labeled “Births” and convinces Vilma to attempt to activate the magic window at the desk. Riley follows along to see what happens while a few other split off to check out the other alcoves. The device takes some time to begin functioning after being shut down for so long. Lilith gets Vilma to activate the device in the last office, the words over which have not been adequately deciphered. Best guesses include Departures or Leaving. Sar’n then gets Vilma to open the door to the next room which contains a large table. No chairs surround it, but there are sheaves of metal(pages) scattered across the table, they find nothing of consequence on a quick search.

Some of the documents indicate awareness of impending doom and advice on courses of action, including fleeing to the mountains, the plains or returning to the Shaari home. Vilma helps the others check a few of the devices to look for information. The birth records include names that Vilma recognizes, but little information of consequence. Finally in the departures section, they find an interactive map-like feature. Shiele is less than pleased as the image moves quickly and makes her nauseous. One of the locations seems to be labeled as Cat People, similar to the name of the world, Artath. The Artathi are believed to have been the original people of this world. After exploring the limited information they can glean from the devices, they continue into the tower. After the conference room, there is a room of benches before a short corridor to an office with a desk and some shelves littered with metallic tomes. The next room contains two large tables with magical screens that they convince Vilma to activate, until they learn that the room contains tax records. The following room contains a decrepit Shaari skeleton in a chair, flanked by golems.

The screen before the skeleton is still active with a message about his last moments of life and perhaps the end of the local Shaari people. The next room contains benches and a podium, some of the seats are overturned and damaged as if from a battle. Perhaps with the Neogi mentioned in the log of the skeleton, but that’s simply speculation. On the wall behind the lectern, they see symbols that Vilma recognizes as her family insignia. The party moves into the next room, finding the remnants of a battle, the bones of the fallen seemingly still locked in battle. Upon the dais is a throne bearing the bones of a Shaari. The bones rise, identifying itself as the last great king of the Shaari, Eijnhorn. He tells the tale of the last days of his empire, his remaining people fleeing into the planes or the mountains to breed with the ogres or the humans. Those that mixed with the ogres returned to strike down the king. He explains that the Neogi are their ancient enemy, a dangerous spider-like people with whom they’ve been fighting for some time. He also provides them with information about the layout of the solar system and some external barrier that protects them from the Phlogistan, energy and magic, a dangerous things outside the worlds within. They traveled from system to system within spheres meant to protect the lives within and even noted that Humans, dwarves and elves also emigrated to the world of the Artathi. They learn that Dragons have been spread across the worlds by the Dragon gods. He then points them toward the lifts that will send them down to the caverns where portals can take them to the Hells. Finally, with a touch, he gives them knowledge of the Shaari so they can understand his words.

While Vilma must remain behind to rebuild the Shaari people, the others will move on to continue the quest of Davros in the Nine Hells. The elevator ride down lasts considerably longer than the ride up to the second floor. At the bottom, they encounter various paths leading off into the darkness underground with labels in Shaari. The group gathers and heads down several tunnels until they find a room with portals leading to each of the 9 Hells. The room is guarded by a barrier of silver flames, which most pass through without trouble. Lilith feels uncomfortable but manages to cross it. Here the party says its goodbyes to Vilma who must remain behind. Clarinette elects to remain behind with Vilma, eager to chronicle the rise of the Shaari people. Lilith runs through the portal ahead of the party during their emotional goodbye followed quickly by other party members, eager to begin the next stage of the journey. Last through the portal is Shiele after a quick, personal farewell with Clarinette.

On the far side, the party finds themselves upon the banks of the River Styx, Tiamhat’s Citadel visible in the distance. The portal is almost invisible behind them, disguised as a cleft in the cliff face. Before they can move on, they calm Davros and use magic to then hide his aura. Followed quickly by Shiele, the emotional wreck, and they also need to calm her. Lilith, who’d arrived first, drops her illusion and reveals that she is in fact a Tiefling. Of course this only really bothers Davros, who is convinced to just roll with it. Once they’ve got their shit together, the party scouts their surroundings, noting their destination is not far. Sar’n begins summoning the demons he made a deal with so they can strike out toward their objective with a distraction. Leroy strikes a Lemure that wanders to close to the party and kills it instantly. The demons arrive and after a gentle prod from Sar’n, pay up the remaining amount agreed upon to the party. As the demons begin summoning in reinforcements, the party teleports away to continue their mission.

They land near the Maggot Pit as the demon horde grows and the locals finally notice. A horrific roar sounds from the caves by the pit and they jump again, appearing just beneath the caves as Tiamhat soars out to lead his Hellish armies against the demons. Trying to resist the evil gods power and mostly succeeding, the party hides briefly, before jumping again hoping to get to the specific cave they need to reach. Relatively safe for a brief moment, Sar’n uses magic to find the portal they need to reach. The battle erupting at the point of their arrival is rapidly turning into a fight beyond their immediate comprehension. Riley and Leroy can feel the armies of hell approach and warn the others. With another short jump, they disappear through the portal just as the armies come into the area, darkening the skies.

Huh... they're all usually dead by now... and they're kicking our asses.

The party rests for the night after clearing the first tower, noting that Vilma is definitively taller. When Riley notices that her sword is the same size it was before, Vilma inspects it and discovers that it has fiery properties. After exiting the pocket dimension, the golems seem to be active again, but are behaving passively with their eyes glowing blue. The party heads back outside to continue their quest, the barrier they had previously shut off is electricity arching over the walkway. Aside from their hair standing on end, no one is harmed by the arcing energy. Vilma heads out last, the arc channeling into the gem stone/power source as she leaves. Lillith’s persistent efforts to cheer up Shiele result in a thrown punch.

Now that it’s later in the day, the other towers have a glow that was not previously noticeable in full day light. As they are heading in, Riley jokes about Vilma striking a pose when they notice the statues in the Fire tower’s foyer resemble her. Unfortunately, she takes him seriously and a brief panic ensues. Luckily no one is hurt and they get inside the tower safely. Inside they find more golems and similar decor, however these do not comply when the Shaari commands are issued. Quite the contrary, the golem in the third room attacks and the party soon discovers how powerful they are firsthand. While Vilma attempts to read commands from a book to no avail, they manage to destroy one of the golems, but one of them manages to kill Riley. Vilma finally manages to use a command that freezes the golems in place. And everybody was a huge dick about me going to the bathroom, despite the fact that a bunch of people left during the battle and nobody said a god damn thing.

The party gathers in the corner behind a line of summoned minions around Riley’s body which begins to noticeably glow. Shiele slowly recovers from her latest mental breakdown. The word Vilma used was Truce and the golems are still red-eyed, but do not move to attack. Lillith seems to know a bit more about this and postulates that it may be related to the Artathi gods. A pantheon on par with the others in terms of power, but mostly unknown to outsiders. She attempts to calm Shiele, with little success, then moves to inspect the monk’s glowing body. When she attempts to touch it, divine energy arcs to her fingertip. Leaving no permanent damage, she notices her finger briefly glows, then encourages Davros to touch the body.

Ready to procede, Vilma goes to open the doors to the next room and carries a sobbing Shiele on her shoulder into the next room. No one really wants to move the glowing monk corpse, so they watch and wait. After a moment, Davros notices that Riley has a pulse again and points this out. Finally Riley surges back to life, divine light surged from his eyes, mouth, and the mark on his forehead, morphing to the symbol of St. Cuthbert. The monk makes a weak attempt to attack his killer but is easily restrained, the party moves into the next room to get farther from the golems. Putting aside their issues as best as possible, they proceed upstairs. On the next floor, they encounter a silver-eyed golem that doesn’t seem to react to them. In the next room, they find many crates, in one of them, Davros finds what appears to be golem parts. The next door is actually locked for once, inside they find some sort of workshop where golems may have been made or repaired. It seems that someone left the workshop in a hurry and somewhat messy.

While Sar’n and Lillith begin to loot anything that might be useful or valuable, Riley inspects the golem on the table which appears to have been incomplete and Davros looks in some crates, finding more golem parts. The pair loot everything from the workshop that glows with a magical aura and all the crates stored in the other room. Heading back the way they came, they go in the opposite direction around the tower, the first room to the right has a half dozen small statuettes on pedestals. Shiele seems to really like them and they make her feel much better. Clarinette stays with her as the others move on. The next room is lined with strange braziers, with symbols made of some kind of flame hovering over them with no detectable source or means. Vilma feels a little nervous about opening the next door, but all they find inside is another giant statue that reminds her of her father. When she touches, it nods to her, but doesn’t move other than that. Stairs lead them up to the top floor.

This seems to be some sort of throne room, four massive statues face a throne in the center of the room. After a few moments, they solve the puzzle, the statues raising their spears towards the glowing red stone that powers this tower. When Vilma sits in it, the chair lifts her up to retrieve it the stone. As soon as she does the chairs drop out from under her, luckily Sar’n is ready to catch her with magic. With what they assume will help them gain access to the central tower, the party begins to head back down, collecting Shiele and Clarinette on the way. Shiele stuffs the statues into her bag and Lilith attempts to steal a few also, but the golem forces her to put them back. Riley is reluctant to get close to it, but they all head down to the first floor. The golems there now have yellow eyes, but allow them to pass. As they leave, the exit also charges the brick with energy. Sar’n takes a quick trip back to the keep to unload their haul of loot with the help of the pocket gnomes. Vilma snags Davros back into the tower for a few minutes of private time and the others wait to head over the next tower.

The party heads into the acid green tower next, inside they immediately meet two golems with gold eyes gesturing them further into the building. The second room seems to be a waiting area with couches and seats. The third room is full of shelves and stands covered in pamphlets and brochures too old to touch without destroying. The fourth room is full of stone stools, glowing sigils on the floor in a line toward the other end of the room. The sigils light up blue as Vilma crosses over them, fading back to normal after she passes. The line leads to a counter in the next room, another golem awaits and points them to the stairs.

The first room of the second floor is rather large but empty, a golem stands at either end. A message in Shaari is on the wall along with arrows pointing in either directions. Vilma manages to decipher them, one leads to pickup and the other to outbound. Behind the desk in pickup they find a void, unable to be seen or detected in any way. They move on without taking any chances on it, other than throwing a few items into the area. On the outbound side, they meander through a queue to the next room. This room has lines of writing on the floor leading to the stairs up to the next level.

The third floor has a grid in the center with 4 pedestals near the walls and the a green glowing brick in the center of the ceiling. Shiele examines one, climbs aboard and activates a control that raises it to the roof like the elevator in the first tower. Riley, Lilith, and Davros also activate the other platforms as well. On the roof, there’s a metal spike rising out of the center of the roof. Inside, Sar’n and Vilma try to move the spike once they notice grooves on the spike. It does go up and down after being manipulated just right, but does not pull free. The message on the floor is something about a safety override and the lifts. When they bring the lifts back down, the spike and brick come free. When they reach the floor again, a hole in the floor opens for the spike which is still attached to the brick. When inserted into the floor, they can hear mechanical sounds and the brick detaches, leaving the spike in the floor. With the third brick in hand, they head outside, the brick being charged up just like the others. The third tower appears to have been a transportation hub at some point.

The fourth tower seemed to be a hotel, allowing the party to easily progress to the second floor. The first floor was full of small rooms, the second, larger and more nicely appointed rooms. Or at least they were at one point, now everything decays when touched. With nothing of interest, they head up to the third floor seeking the final brick. The final floor has a trapped door which blasts them all with a wave of cold when Vilma attempts to open it. Shiele checks for traps and doesn’t find any others, however a needle jabs her when she picks the lock. Luckily the poison has long since decayed away. The room appears to have been some sort of ultra fancy suite and the last brick glows overhead. Three inactive golems inhabit the room. A beaded curtain dividing the room seems to fascinate Shiele and Lillith while Riley investigates the glowing blue brick in the ceiling. The room holds many possible riches, if the party can manage to loot them, including a set of armor that would fit Vilma. Sar’n manages to loot some things by pulling them into his pocket dimension.

When Shiele unlocks the door to the final room of the top floor they find a room full of strange windows showing images, possibly scrying devices, and buttons, levers and switches all over. Shiele of course hits some buttons, but nothing happens fortunately. Several members of the group gather round to attempt to figure it out. A switch powers up the devices with arcane energy, Vilma’s eyes turn silver and she begins hitting buttons. One brings up an image of the suite, Vilma releases the bead curtain of precious stones, sending Lillith and Shiele scampering to loot it. Davros and Vilma have a little more focus and someone warns Riley that they are attempting to release the brick from the ceiling. Vilma is looking for a way to do so, but is concerned that the process may cause an explosion and activate the golems. Luckily, they are successful and there is no explosion and they have the final brick in hand.

The party heads back home for a while while Shiele runs around confirming that all the people she cares about are still alive. Back at Kobowlders Keep, the Pocket Gnomes have retreated back into their realm while gnomes have stopped in to visit. The others go about their usual business on returning to the keep, checking on their cohorts, apprentices and minions. Cort has completed his very own wizard tower, which Sar’n brings their new member, Lilith, to visit. There they seek to arm Lilith with some new gear, including some armor, a rapier and a dagger. Cort eventually rouses from his fatigued stupor to fill them in about the war efforts. Kofrath raids are becoming quite common and many races from the underground have been driven out by the enemy advance.

Clarinette is relaxing in the amphitheater and finds a young bard fawning over her. Apparently many young bards have heard of the Kobowlders and come to be at the center of the action. She messes with him for a bit, sending him off to bother Vilma. Davros goes to the keep’s temple to perform some rites, aid in rituals and meet with the local clergy of Pelor. Riley checks up on the war efforts as well with his order of monks, sparring with the various levels and groups of pupils and imparting knowledge of some of his advanced techniques. Around late-afternoon, the party reconvenes in the Great Hall. Eating and drinking, prepping to resume their quest, Davros fills Lilith in about their current mission.

Vilma shows up with the young bard in tow and a large pot of soup. Kilrem’s excitement is undampened when he realizes he’s just met more of the Kobowlders. Lilith attempts to distract him with a discrete math problem in arcana. Vilma grows impatient and goes to fetch Clarinette from the amphitheater to make her eat lunch. Clarinette chats with Vilma on the way back to the great hall and then with Kilrem. Shiele also soon shows up and the ladies discover that the soup was the greatest soup they’ve ever tasted. There is some debate as to whether the party should set back out immediately, which leads to discussion of Sar’n’s deal with the demons. Some details come to light, including failure penalties that the party was previously unaware of and is now rather angry with Sar’n. Especially Shiele who immediately confronts and berates him before teleporting back to the town where the met Lilith to continue their journey. Lilith immediately follows while the rest of the group puts a little more effort into preparing.

Lilith and Shiele have a rather tense stand off and eventually Shiele heads off on her own again. When the party finally catches up, little progress is made in calming down Shiele, but the party does try to meet up. Riley heads off to find Shiele, then keeps up with her in case trouble shows up. The rest of the party makes it’s way towards the towers in the corner of town they had not previously explored. There they meet up with eachother.

The outer towers are massive round pillars, and based on the shape, that appeared to originally support a giant sphere, balanced atop the square central building. Each round pillar has a doorway facing the central tower, but it’s protected by an energy barrier of some kind. The red barrier deflects a rock as a molten ball of rock. The green barrier deflects the projectile but it dissolves in midair. The group spreads out, exploring and cautiously trying to find a way into the towers. Touching the tower results in taking damage related to the color of the barrier. The central tower seems to be safe and atop it RIley finds the top is shaped like a bowl with a curious dark patch exactly in the center that resembles a hatch, aside from being just a darker patch of the stone. Sar’n attempts several spells, as well as sending a fire elemental through the fiery red barrier, which results in the painful destruction of the creature. Vilma seems to have some reaction to the towers, her eyes turning silver and a sudden ability to read the inscriptions above the doors. Her eyes do return to normal eventually. Velma helps the others read inscriptions from over the doorways. Red = “Fire purifies” Green = “Destruction Promotes Rebirth” Blue = “Winter Preserves” White = “Energy is Life” Bones of the goblins and other locals litter the ground by each barrier and they soon realize the barriers have some kind of pull on people that get too close.

At the final column, Vilma tries to walk into the portal and it takes several people to prevent her from walking into what they believe to be certain death, including a conjured shelter, a monk, and teleportation. Lilith finally learns about the groups mental link and sends Riley back to fetch the rest of the group after teleporting them away from the barrier. Some of the group reach the conclusion that perhaps Vilma can safely bypass the barriers due to her heritage. To test it, they plan to have her touch the side of one of the towers as Riley did, which was at least survivable. Their idea works and Vilma manages to get into the towers and deactivate the barrier. Inside the entrance, they find several what may be either statues or stone golems. Beyond that is a room decently lit room with several low tables and a desk in front of a door. Everything is coated in a layer of dust about a quarter inch thick, parchment they find is so brittle it disintegrates upon being touched.

In the next room, they encounter two very large golems that react when Vilma reads the inscriptions. Whether they are under her influence or not is not entirely clear, but they don’t immediately attack. Clarinette and Lilith attempt to influence Vilma who seems to have limited control or capacity when her ancestral abilities are active. While the party attempts to deal with the golems, Riley manages to open the next doorway. Inside is another large golem which is watching him intently. It soon becomes clear the golems are attempting to herd them further inside, the lone golem moves out of their path to allow them to enter the third room. Shiele and Clarinette, who had been left in the foyer, manage to squeeze in to follow the group. The rooms have book shelves, closets, weapons racks and other things. Many of the books are made of metal with metal sheets for pages. The golems reacted with varying eye colors when the group interacts with items in the rooms. While Vilma’s strength seems to be increasing, she does not seem to be gaining more control, she can easily move heavy doors or lift the metal books. Clarinette and Vilma attempt to read some of the books to gain a better understanding of the language.

The golems follow the party, blocking their path of retreat, soon the party finds themselves on the second floor. In the second room of the second floor the party encounters the shambling corpses of 5 Shaar’i and a suit of armor with glowing red eyes. To their credit, they actually attempt diplomacy first. Which fails and Davros unleashes his holy abilities to Turn Undead. It has little effect but Vilma’s abilities surface again, with a new, stronger rage as she leaps into the fray. Shiele and Riley flank the enemies who are drawn to Vilma shouting in Shaar’i. In a break in the fight, Shiele scouts the next room and spots an inactive golem. With a shout, Vilma brings it into the fray, smashing one of their enemies into dust. Unfortunately, the armored enemy seems able to command it as well and it attacks Sar’n and Leeroy, somehow hurting him even in his shadow form. Vilma’s abilities allow her to cut down the remaining enemies and regain control of the golem.

Past the frey, the party finds the stairs up to the final floor. Here they find a mysterious device (like an elevator) that Vilma can activate. It takes them out to the roof, but there doesn’t seem to be anything else there. They take what appears to be the power source and the golems on the final floor deactivate. Perhaps this is the key to opening the central tower. The party decides to rest for the night before continuing.

Leeroy fetches the rest of the party and they head toward the keep to join Sar’n and Riley. The others are unsurprised to find a considerable amount of damage to the location, Davros complains loudly about the ancient stone gates which are now a pile of stone. Climbing over the rubble, with varying degrees of grace, they find the courtyard full of the charred remains of large kobolds, scrawny orcs and some goblins. They did however manage to take one kobold alive.

They attempt to convince him to begin diplomatic talks, despite the Kobold’s trepidations. He manages to convince the guards to let them in to meet with the boss. Clarinette is rather cutesy today and confuses many a guard. The guard warns them to show respect to their leader who led them to freedom from slavery. Which leads to Clarinette bowing to a guard in the corner, embarassing the guard thoroughly until Riley drags her back to the group. Before the leader can even speak, Shiele teleports with Clarinette who noticed a shadowy figure slipping out the side door (several people did, but only a few of them were tactless enough to do anything). This immediately causes a scuffle, only Vilma manages to ram a guard before the encampment leader slams his weapon into the ground, shocking everyone into stillness once more.

With their more impulsive members behaving for the moment, they begin talks with the leader, informing of their search for a portal in this area. Some party members have difficulty ignoring the shadowy figure that slipped out the side door. The leader opens the door to show them an empty room and after a brief inspection, some party members resume talking with the leader. When they finally get to introductions, the leader introduces himself as Maelor. Shiele continues examining a strange contraption in the other room (an elevator), Clarinette joins her after she finishes flirting with Maelor. Sar’n manages to use a potion of detect thoughts and hears only a buzz from Maelor, seemingly confirming their suspicions that his constant pauses in speech are because he is being controlled.

Riley tries to keep Maelor on track, talking about finding the portal, while Sar’n is bent on tricking him into saying something. Shiele is now searching for a power source for the device in the other room. The conversation follows several different tracks simultaneously as the party attempts to confuse Maelor, which is less than successful. Eventually Sar’n calls out Maelor’s controller to Maelor’s face. The locals react only with confusion and eventually the conversation turns back to the portal they are searching for. Maelor admits that there is a complex in the corner of the city with some towers that has defied all their attempts to enter and killed anyone who did so. The shaman becomes upset and storms off, the party comes to an understanding with Maelor that after resting for the evening, they will attempt to gain entry to this portion of the city. At one point, Shiele teleports away with Davros to study some of the tomes they found out in the city.

The party is led to a small hall with several tables, benches and barrels, as well as a shelving unit, perhaps a store room, to rest for the night. Shiele and Davros later return, but Shiele of course wants to snoop around. They are nearly caught when Davros opens at door at Shiele’s behest. Luckily, Sar’n manages a distraction and casts invisibility on the pair. Davros sneaks into the room with the party, while Shiele continues snooping. Clarinette uses magic to disguise herself and heads out to join Shiele, bluffing her way past the guard. The pair snoop around together, finding a kitchen near a training hall and then head upstairs. Meanwhile, Sar’n spends several minutes casting Geas on one of the guards, causing him to immediately collapse.

Upstairs, Clarinette and Shiele run into some Goblins who speak in undercommon to the visible, but disguised, Clarinette. She responds in draconic and brusquely moves on as they try to explore the upper level before the invisibility wears off. Sar’n replaces the guard with an illusion and sends Davros into the pocket dimension to keep an eye on the guard until he awakens, which is almost immediately and looking to serve his new master. Sar’n even convinces Riley to knock out the other guard, who proves very susceptible to a Stunning Blow and is also replaced by an and illusion from Sar’n. RIley and the second guard join Davros and the first guard in Sar’n pocket dimension, where Davros heals the guard so he doesn’t die from subdual damage. Upstairs, Shiele and Clarinette find a nursery, which Shiele cannot handle the smell of.

Sar’n then disguises himself and joins Shiele and Clarinette in exploring, ultimately finding the shaman performing an augury with the entrails of a freshly slain goblin. The invisible Shiele vomits and gives them away, resulting in their sudden disappearance to the pocket dimension. Sar’n also fetches Vilma and Leeroy, now that their game may be up. He begins interrogating the captured guards and they decide to take action once more, primarily in taking out the shaman. After some rest and a few buff spells, they teleport back into the shrine to attack. The shaman is the first to fall as Shiele teleports in and destroys him with two strikes. Three more are eliminated by a spell from Sar’n and a blast of song from Clarinette removes the last two. Riley zips off down the corridors and scouts ahead for more enemies. Undetected, he returns to the party and they head in the opposite direction, finding a path into a lower level.

The lower level of the keep is recently carved out of Earth and rock, they soon find the locals finishing other similar rooms toward a more complete state, scrubbing, scraping and sweeping. They even find Maelor scrubbing floors, completely unresponsive to stimuli like the others. After some wandering and traps, they come across a room full of locals and an Illithid, who is foolishly confident, controlling them all. He turns out to be an illusion, but the party quickly dispatches most of the enemies. Shiele retreats to the next room after taking a hit from the enemy. The doors seal shut behind her and Maelor, or the creature that resembles him, turns out to be an illithid in disguise. Riley uses his ring on the door that has locked itself in an effort to get to Shiele’s aid, the door holds but the frame is badly damaged. Shiele really gets her bell rung as she was sitting with her back to the door and quickly crawls away to hide nearby. After the party dispatches the enemies, they catch up with Shiele.

In the next room, they find some bookshelves filled with strange books, which are promptly looted. Shiele heads into the next room and finds a tomb, which matches the architecture of the upper floors. The inscriptions seem to resemble the language they’ve seen elsewhere, which Vilma finds quite intriguing. Shiele is unwilling to loot this room as it seems important to Vilma. They turn back and head for the other door out of the last room. Riley, unable to find a trap, tries the handle. While he isn’t electrocuted, he does end up with his fur standing on end. Shiele checks again and opens the door. Inside, there is what appears to be a massive brain, surrounded by Illithids and the locals from upstairs.

Shiele instantly flees via teleportation, while Sar’n throws a wand into the room and detonates it with disintegrate. The wand explodes violently, as party members attempt to dive to the side in an attempt to shelter from the blast. The only one that really gets hurt is Vilma, who trips and lands on Davros who was knocked unconscious by the sheer mental power of the Illithid hive mind. The room is a smokey, charred ruin with nothing remaining, except for a single, wounded Illithid who escapes, warning that “This isn’t over!” Vilma is actually glowing now and even looks a little taller now, but only a few people notice this until Clarinette points it out. Vilma seems to have been imbued by the arcane blast of the exploding wand, although all she’ll say is that she’s not feeling well. The party decides to head out, looking for Shiele.

Shiele, who teleported towards the stairs leading back upstairs, collapsing in an emotional wreck, believing that all her friends are dead. A stranger, who was apparently being held hostage, tries to run past her. The panicked Shiele jumps up and they collide, ending up accidentally stabbing her in the thigh. The stranger, Lillith, turns ethereal and attempts to run away, despite her injury and Shiele’s panicked apology. Lillith only stops running away when Shiele offers a healing potion, she takes it, but is still unhappy about being stabbed.

When she hears Sar’n broadcast over the neural link, she gets excited and teleports back to the party, very happy to see them all still alive. Lillith panics and runs, but Sar’n manages to contact her mentally and convince her not to flee. Riley provides her with his spare monk robe as she is currently only wearing a dressing gown. After a brief chat, Sar’n teleports the party plus 1, up to the second floor in search of Lillith’s gear, which she can apparently sense. They find her equipment in a room littered with random detritus; gear, clothing, broken boxes, and many odds and ends.

Before their battle can draw too much attention, Sar’n teleports the party back to the entry point of this plane, avoiding a lot of walking, casting of minor spells, and probably trouble. From here, they reconcile their plans. They need to pick up the demons they contracted as a distraction and some cloaks to protect them in the Gray Waste, before heading into the Nine Hells to pick up the trail of the missing Paladin of Pelor. The party heads back to the portal to the City of Sigils to continue on to their next destination. Sar’n and the portal attendant are rather catty toward eachother, eventually he slams his book shut and just tells them to go through a door. Sar’n, Davros, and Riley head in while Shiele tries to get some information from the desk clerk. Davros is immediately affected by the atmosphere of Lost Hope.

While they attempt to convince the depressed clerk in Lost Hope to help them, Shiele comes through and tells them to turn back. Back in the Tower, they try to keep the peace between Sar’n and the desk man while on their way to the next portal. The next portal leads them back to the Prime Matieral plane, part of a short cut to their destination. The party appears in some ruins in Shaar, the northeastern plains of the world. Riley manages to snap Davros out of his depression with a flick to the eye. The anger brings him back to himself and the party discusses their situation before setting out northwest towards a portal to the second level of Hades where they can get their cloaks.

In their travels, they spot a herd of buffalo and change course to avoid running into Vilma’s tribe, who are apparently vicious and cannibalistic. Later that day, they spot the herd of horses of the tribe shadowing the buffalo. Shiele, Riley, and Vilma move in to disable the riders directing the horse herd while Sar’n observes invisibly from above. After Shiele and Vilma disable the guards, Riley startles the herd, trampling the unconscious riders to hide the party’s presence. Vilma then sends Riley back to the other party members and they mount up, ready to move on toward their destination. With their stolen horses, the party makes camp for the night.

As they make their way westward, they note tribes in the distance, but Vilma feels they will not be subject to any attack they can’t handle. Upon reaching the foothills of the mountains, they send the horses away and Sar’n flies, dragging the party along on magic disks. Soon they find themselves on the outskirts of the ruins of a city that seems to corresponds to the map’s location of the gateway. Most are uneasy about approaching, Vilma’s people tell tales of this region. It’s people were once enslaved by powerful magical beings during a great war. Information about their current status is less than reliable. Sar’n flies over to recon the place and the party debates how best to proceed.

The group decides to sneak in with Sar’n’s magic, using invisibility and floating disks to enter the city. Upon attempting the fly directly in, instead of far overhead, they find a magic barrier over the city. Forced to enter at ground level, the find the construction is for creatures ten feet tall, but the magic is elven and the construction is dwarven. Doors are made of stone blocks, including the gates which have tumbled inward. They find tracks moving into the city, somewhat recent. Somehow, the first building the investigate appears to have once been a tavern. Finding nothing but dust and stone, the party spreads out, exploring the ruins systematically. Sar’n provides overwatch from the tops of the broken stone walls of the buildings. Riley soon joins him to keep watch while Sar’n coordinates the searching. When Vilma points out the tracks look like oversized Kobolds, Riley heads toward the center of the city along the upper walls of buildings, safely above street level. Sar’n ascends to keep watch better while Riley scouts and the rest of the party continues searching.

While Riley tries to sneak up the walls of the city center keep, Sar’n flies up to the top and alerts the occupants. Fleeing crossbow bolts, oversized Kobolds start moving out from the keep. Having ruined the element of surprise, Sar’n summons a different element, Earth, to fight the Kobolds. Shiele continues her searching, feeling that there is something strange about the building they are exploring. Vilma and Clarinette explore on their own a bit, finding a desecrated temple and a tavern. While the elementals engage the ground level troops, Riley surveys the forces inside the keep and disables the sentries in a swift strike. The elementals quickly dispatch the attack party and move around to the front gate. Sar’n joins Riley on the walls and blasts most of the ground troops prepping for a fight inside the walls. The buildings inside the keep have rooftop hatches, which prove imperious their grenades and adamantine wings. One surviving Kobold smashes the portculis controls, slamming it shut before the earth elementals can enter. The gate guard tries to flee Sar’n and is intercepted and disarmed by Riley.

They capture the Kobold and find they are escaped slaves. The situation has just gotten very complicated, they quickly call for Clarinette to hopefully remedy the situation with diplomacy. Back across town, Davros and Shiele find a hidden room and spring a gas trap. Davros quickly pulls her out of the gas and brings her back around, they call for Clarinette to clear the gas. Leeroy acts as the communication agent for the team to rally the party. In the hidden room, they find locked shelves, cabinets and containers, full of ledgers inscribed on stone. The ledgers indicate that this was the city of the Shaarii, offshoots of the ogres. The city was established as a defense against the great enemy, which they believe may have been the Kofrath. The populace had fled here from a great war elsewhere in the planes.

At a frontier town on the plane of Carceri, the party is working to find their way to the Nine Hells and safely cross the Grey Wastes. As per usual, they end up in a bar, this one run by a hag. Sar’n has managed a strange contract with a demon and a forger. His clever wording has their new associates bent to their whim. Vilma and Davros have gotten tanked and are currently sleeping it off in Sar’n’s pocket dimension. Riley is sitting at the bar and drinking, while glowering at his lot in life, trying to keep the others out of trouble. While they await the return of the forger, they kill time at the bar. Sar’n plays a game with some patrons while Shiele and Clarinette watch, and Riley keeps to himself. When Sar’n ups the stakes, an Ultraloth joins the game as well as Shiele. Riley keeps a closer eye on the game now that the rolls are looking suspicious. The stakes get higher and higher, but the game manages to end peacefully with a large win for Sar’n and Shiele. The Ultraloth leaves with some other creatures of his ilk.

Sar’n gives some of the money to Riley for safekeeping and the party begins looking for rooms for the night as the forger won’t be ready until tomorrow. Shiele heads out on her own, while the others go look for quarters. Meanwhile , in the pocket dimension, the Davros and Vilma enjoy some drunken revelry. Shiele finds a shady den to hang out in with people of her own sort.

Immediately upon exiting the bar, Riley notices 9 people watching them. The zombie from the tavern gives them a map to a safe bunk house to rest in for the night, so they head there on an abstract route. The group watches them begins to follow them as they move out. Sar’n magics them to the far end of the street and they take a false turn to divert their pursuers. Riley uses his own abilities to take them in the appropriate direction, thoroughly losing their tail hopefully. They make it safely to the bunk house and Sar’n goes to check out some local shops while RIley and Clarinette secure some rooms for the party. After some wandering, Sar’n disguises himself and returns to the bunkhouse, he enters and gets a room without identifying himself. After a mysterious conversation with his colleagues Sar’n the douche goes up to his room, and later has the desk attendant succubus deliver a note to Clarinette. The others are only marginally surprised by this dick move and go to sleep.

In the morning, Sar’n has the misfortune of waking Vilma and Davros, before they head out to the bar they met at the previous day. The party dines at the Hag’s Tavern while they await the return of their accomplice. They make a surreptitious exchange after the forger arrives, getting their documents in exchange for the payment Sar’n promised. As soon as they leave the tavern to continue on their quest, they are attacked by the Ultraloth that lost the game of chance the night before. It was at this point, the Ugoloths began to realize… they fucked up.

After several days running all over the tower in search of an Archmagister of the Society, Vorahill, who has gone missing the party closes in on a prime suspect. The Tower has been locked down and the party were the last allowed inside to try to solve this mystery. Various hijinks ensue, including an orgy in the climate control room for the Wilds that results in damage to the console and extreme weather changes while some of the party attempt to find children from a field trip. A brawl breaks out in the Chapel while Riley leads a service and spots an old enemy in the audience. Vilma goes berserk in the market when someone buys all the tomatoes. Shiele upsets the casino by breaking all the machines that are keeping the people trapped inside. The school is set ablaze, leading to the arrest of the Janitor, Scruffy, as the prime suspect. In pursuit of the suspect, several people are paralyzed by poison. Unrest is building on various levels as people discover the lockdown has been increased to lock down each level. Clarinette beat an old frienemy in an epic rap battle who is now the lead suspect in their investigation. Clarinette and Shiele discovered that they are pregnant. Their prime suspect, Tatiana, has made a fortune telling her own version of the story of the Kobowlders in the Outlands. Shiele, distraught by her pregnancy, took refuge in the retirement level and met Judith. Nikki walked out of the Tower on strange business.

Current leads in the investigation indicates that while Vorahill was running some experiment involving transmutation of people into animals. They believe that somehow Tatiana turned him into a parrot as well as the Librarian into a skeleton then, turning him into a table. Another official had also been turned into a bird in his quarters. Now the party is hunting Tatiana and the caged parrot. Riley learned at the school that Tatiana had been interacting with a little girl. Scruffy and Shiele find similar evidence at Tatiana’s apartment.

Clarinette is in the entertainment district with Scruffy and Shiele, an enhanced mouse (Mickey) is looking over the entrance to the district. Sar’n, Davros, and Vilma are in the botanics district before traveling to the Wilds. Riley is on his way to meet up with Scruffy, Clarinette, and Shiele. Linwe is keeping watch in the lobby. Sar’n and company go to the Wilds where ‘someone’ cranked down the cold and created a snow storm, trying to drive everyone out of the Wilds. For some reason, there is another field trip there with the same chaperons. The children have been rescued back to the Greenhouse from the storm. One of the children apparently had the caged parrot they currently believe to be Vorahill. Sar’n uses magic to begin melting a path through the snow. He soon finds a broken open cage buried in the snow. They decide to look for a Pocket-Gnome Engineer who may have seen the parrot. With no new evidence, they trudge back into the snow to continue searching for the parrot or anyone that may have taken it. With a view from the rafters, they spot footprints. Someone has taken the bird and sneaked back through the portal.

Meanwhile in the Entertainment district, Scruffy and Shiele have met up with Clarinette and calmed a riot before it got out of hand. They head to the tavern for a short break and find out that someone in security has been sneaking things through the lockdown. Riley soon arrives and they exchange new intel and after a quick lunch decide to head to security once they get hold of Sar’n. The woman obsessed with him is the smuggler among security. A server in the tavern asks them to deliver an amount of gold to the woman in security. There is some arguing over Bob’s true identity, but with the intel that the dead man from the school may have been a pedophile, attention on Scruffy has decreased.

The party, now re-united, heads down to the Security level. Their new target, Kaylen, is at the desk to greet them. To discover more information, they take her into an office and talk with her, minus Riley who is watching the desk and Davros who is looking for someone else from security to relieve Riley. The others try to discover deeper intel on the smuggling ring. The guards in the lobby, guarding the arena level, were apparently involved as well. Davros is left at the desk while everyone else continues the interrogation. The guard is upset with Kaylen and is instructed to keep an eye on her.

Their next lead is to interview the injured guards. They find the stabbed guard is now dead and was apparently strangled. With the aid of a scroll, Sar’n brings him back and they interrogate him. Shiele leads Scruffy out of the room for fear of suspicion. The guards admit to knowing the way in and out of the tower and that Tatiana may know it as well. They lead the party to the last cell in the detention area and open a secret passage. With Scruffy’s cover fully blown, he is sworn into the Kobowlders after some debate. The passage leads into a mine.

Vilma finds recent tracks, leading into the mine and presumably toward the exit. In the main cavern, they find many people chained to the ground with Tatiana currently chaining up someone else. The guards are shoved to the ground as the party demands to know where Vorahill is.

Tatiana disappears and her pets, two hydras, appear to fight them. When that doesn’t do the trick, she summons more and mirror images. With strength and ingenuity, the hydras are dispatched and Tatiana is knocked out and locked up. As they free the prisoners and begin to take her up stairs, the real Tatiana, somewhat worse for wear, appears and stabs the bound, gagged, and manacled impostor off Vilma’s shoulders. The illusion fails and they discover that Vorahill’s butler, was behind it all along.

Clarinette and Davros take a disgruntled Sar’n to search the tunnel ahead. They soon encounter a parrot which Davros manages to turn back into the Archmagister Vorahill. The others have secured Tatiana and Wally in seperate cells with Scruffy, Shiele, and Vilma keeping close tabs on them. Riley leads the rescued people upstairs to the infirmary in search of aid.

Soon Vorahill is led up to the cells to confront the villain of this escapade. He condemns Wally and thanks Tatiana for aiding him. Sar’n immediately degloves one of Wally’s fingers, then sits in the corner and smokes his pipe, deeply unsettling his party. Riley returns shortly afterward with 3 guards. Vorahill decides to take everyone up to his quarters to settle the issue.

With Wally tied to a chair, they discuss the problem Sar’n has become. Vorahill determines that Sar’n had some kind of psychological break during the fight at the Coronation. With a short stay at the Tower, he thinks it can be corrected. He also lifts the internal lock down of the Tower. Vorahill tells Davros it will take some time to translate the holy book he found. The Archmagister then goes over the various incidents that have occurred during the Kobowlders investigation and excuses their less legitimate actions. Scruffy is pardoned for the fire and the associated death, rewarded with a sword by Vorahill personally. As a diplomatic matter, he requests they turn over the Djinn they’ve had in their custody. Riley has no problem with this and no one else objects.

Vorahill also reveals that five weeks have passed in the five days they’ve been in the Tower. Back in the prime material plane, armies are mobilizing. The party quickly begins moving, except for Leroy, Sar’n and Shiele who simply wanted to return Tatiana’s necklace before leaving and ask about her niece.